The financial crisis in Greece continues taking its toll. I interviewed George Skouras from the Domaine Skouras over a couple of days to get an insiders view on how this affects the Greek wine industry. Domaine Skouras is very well known outside of Greece, and was voted as one of the 100 top wineries of the year by the Wine & Spirits Magazine in 2009.
In order to reach a broader readership, I chose to submit the article to Palate Press, an online magazine that features wine writers from across the globe. Launched in summer last year, Palate Press has quickly grown into one of the most read wine blogs in the world. They are unique in their approach, as they assign a professional editor to every single story they receive. Editing is of course a time consuming process, and I can only imagine that a backlog of stories can built up quickly.
The interview was conducted on April 30th and May 3rd and my write up submitted to Palate Press on the following evening. This morning, the article is already featured online. Kudos to the whole team at Palate Press for working so professional and efficient, I am stunned by just how quickly they published the content. I also wish to thank George Skouras for taking the time to answer all my questions in such a detailed manner. He certainly is a busy man, and I really appreciate his effort.
The article can be found here, and I believe it offers a unique insight into how Greek wineries fare in the times of crisis. After all, it comes straight from the source.
Markus, this interview comes -by coinsidence- simultaneously with the publication of a favourable for Greek wines article on Wine Spectator’s Web Site ( entitled”10 Greek Surprises”), in which the wines by Domaine Skouras have obtained very favourable reviews and scores. The 2006 Megas Oenos in particular, has been awarded a 90, which makes it the third Greek red to pass the 90 points threshold in W.S.’s 100 point scale. (Quiz: which are the other two?)
Needless to say that given the quality of your radar in detecting anything published on Greek wines from everywhere, I am sure you are already aware of this publication…
Yianni, indeed I did see the WS publication. There are currently 17 Greek wines in their database being scored 90 or higher from Argyros (4), Boutari (1), Sigalas (5), Cair (1), Emery (1), Gaia (1), Gerovassiliou (1), Palivou (1), Parparoussis (1), and now Skouras (1).
The question was which are the other 2 RED Greek wines rated 90 or higher. The correct answer is: 2005 Palivos Nemea (90) and 2004 Gerovassiliou Evangelo (90). All the rest are white or dessert wines. I focused on reds since Kim Marcus (W.S.’s writer who covers Greece) has repeatedly stated that he prfers Greek white and dessert wines to reds. This makes the award of a 90+ score to a Greek red -as in this case the 2006 Megas Oenos- quite an achievement.
Yianni, you got me – great observation. I believe the Megas Oinos 2006 fully deserves the score, it is such a pure and elegant wine! As you state correctly, Greek whites fair much better in the US markets than the reds. I wonder if Greek wineries submit more white wine samples because of this…