Wine news July 22, 2015

Eater on the impact of Greek debt on Greek wine. "Greek wineries face different challenges depending on their size; some are content selling in the domestic market and to tourists, Greek tourism having remained strong. "We haven't seen a drop in domestic sales," says Stellios Boutaris of the Kir-Yianni Winery in northern Greece."

W.Blake Gray says go to Greece.

Also in Eater how American dining influenced Burgundy's ascendancy over Bordeaux. "Today, vineyard prices in Burgundy are at an all time high and still rising, while the Bordeaux market is so flat that English wine writer Jancis Robinson, who has covered the wines of Bordeaux for close to four decades, recently summed up the region's limp sales by noting that "the last four en primeur [Bordeaux] campaigns have been damp squibs."

Business Insider on 35 wine tasting terms and what they actually mean." Slutty: Denotes a lot of new oak influence."

In the Washington Post the chemistry that makes your wine taste good or bad."Some scientists estimate that a single glass of wine contains thousands of different chemical compounds."

After 40 years Chicago Tribune wine columnist Bill St. John retires. "I learned, finally, that wine is a metaphor for life, from the moment the bud breaks on the vine in spring, through the rains of summer and the orange sunshine of harvest, until the grape becomes another self which, too, grows and changes and matures."

Vice on why Slovenia is too shy to tell you how great its wines are. "Growing on the wall of a small house on the banks of the river Drava in Slovenia’s second city of Maribor, is the world’s oldest vine. The 400-year-old plant has survived a blight of phylloxera that wiped out vines across Europe, two world wars, late 20th century industrialisation, and squatters who chopped down its branches to burn in winter."

Jamie Goode on Randall Grahm's Indiegogo crowdfunding effort.

The Wine Economist talks Prosecco.