Lesser known tobacco gems for a newbie

Watch City Slices and Perettis' Cuban are under appreciated.

Low Country's Waccamaw.

Low Country's Waccamaw.
Yes! A barn-burner of a tobacco.
OP, you're on the right track with Peretti and Uhle's. Also check out Pipeworks & Wilke. Get yourself some High Hat and some No.10
While not "small batch", based on your description of your tastes, check out GL Pease's Haddo's Delight, Cumberland, Cairo and Barbary Coast.

Low Country's Cooper; Iwan Ries Three Star Blue; Tabac-Manil Semois thick and medium cut burley variant, just to name three in a wide wide selection.

While Uhle's Cuban and Iwan Reis 3-star blue are indeed special, keep in mind that some pipe shop blends (and flakes) are McConnell, Lane, etc. in disguise.
I would recommend you work your way through the classics, like Escudo, Orlik Golden Slice (two Virginias/Vapers), and on the Burley side, Solani's and Wessex's burley flake, and Peterson's University flake.

Here are some lesser known blends from well known companies...
McClelland 5100 is an top notch bulk red Virginia ribbon. It smokes wonderfully on it's own but is also a great blender. It also ages very well in a mason jar. McClelland 2015 is a nice bulk VaPer and also seem to age well, I'm not a big VaPer guy but this one is decent. These are both well know to old dogs but not sure if newbies are hip.
It's absolutely fine if you don't like Latakia, not everyone does. I went thru a period where I would mainline the stuff but these days, while I still favor Latakia blends, I like it used with more restraint.
That said I've been smoking some Lane BS-005 on and off over the last year and while it's kinda on the heavy handed side it's a fairly decent bulk Balkan (see what I did there). This one was kind of new to me and I've been smoking for 23 years.
C&D Junkyard Dawg is a really good American English that I don't see a lot of people talk about. A lot of people love Epiphany but I think JD is the better blend. It does have Latakia but the main player is the Burley in that blend.
Good luck!

D&R Rimboche A.P. or S.J. are excellent VaPerBur blends.

They arrive at 16% or less moisture content and have zero mildew issues.

I buy these in bulk so my experience with their tinned versions is non existent.