Domaine Alex Corton. Uploaded to flickr by PhillipC.

Over at WineBerserkers, Ray Walker – the former Merrill Lynch adviser who quit his job to pursue his dream in Nuits-Saint-Georges – asks for personal answers to the question “Why Burgundy?” It’s a great thread.

In Palate Press, Jeff Siegel  (the Wine Curmudgeon) looks at the growth of “regional wine.” As Jeff explains, “there are 2,765 wineries in the 47 states that aren’t California, Washington and Oregon.”

Ever tasted a wine that’s 210 years old? Mike Steinberger has.

According to the Wine Institute, domestic wine retail sales grew 7 percent in 2010 over the previous year. And U.S. wine exports also jumped — up nearly 26% from 2009.

Tom Wark wishes someone would take up the “Wine Blog Categorization Project.” His plea results in some great comments – with Joe Roberts (aka 1WineDude), Alder Yarrow, and David Honig of Palate Press chiming in. Check out his post.

In the Washington Post, Dave McIntyre reports on the “Brotherhood of the Knights of the Vine of America.” Last month, the group honored three members of Congress — promoting former Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) to the rank of “supreme knight,” and inducting Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) as a “knight of the vine.”

Jon Bonné recommends some dry rosé for under $20.

In Wine Spectator, Ben O’Donnell writes a super interesting article on what might have been the first wine competition, organized by French king Philip Augustus in 1224. The opening is fantastic: “If you’ve ever been to a wine competition, you know that words can be had and contentions contended. It is unlikely, however, that you would see every red wine automatically dumped as inferior, or a wine be praised for having the power to put your eye out, or a judge who hated a wine enough to threaten the winemaker with murder, or that anyone in attendance — much less a member of the tasting panel — would drink enough to pass out for three straight days.”