Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Food and drink/Wines task force/Archive 12

The Pancho Campo issue

Just a headsup over an issue concerning the article on Pancho Campo MW, briefly covering some of the pleasant and less pleasant facets of his career as reported in RS, well within, I think, WP:BLP. The so far single purpose user Sigmahardware (talk · contribs) has been active in bursts to delete the more uncomfortable stuff, most recently, launched a prod on the page, and may well try something else after being told it will likely lead to a speedy keep. Meanwhile, the user is responsible for the content of the Spanish page. MURGH disc. 19:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Added it to my watchlist. AgneCheese/Wine 14:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Frenchman Hills Winery

Any hope of saving this from an Afd? I doubt it. But will not nominate and do not have time to try to help the new user trying to make it OK, anyone want to nudge him in the right direction? --Stefan talk 13:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As the resident wine-loving inclusionist, I must admit there is little hope for this one. Only a bit of the information can be verified, and there is very sparse coverage to contribute to notability. (There is also no notability hook I can see such as largest in the state or oldest in the state.) I posted on the article's talk page to try to explain some basic wikipedia guidelines to the creator. Maybe the White Owl solution of merging any verifiable content to the page on the town where the winery is located would work.--Milowent (talk) 13:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I find the above hand wringing bizarre. You all agree the article doesn't merit inclusion, and even provide rationale. So prod it already. I have done so. The author (who seems more interested in promoting the winery based on editing activiy in other articles) has a week to correct the problems as long As the prod is there. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:42, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I didn't have to prod it because i knew you would. You like the "bad cop" role.--Milowent (talk) 19:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I prefer to think of it as "tough love". :) ~Amatulić (talk) 02:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I do not want to WP:BITE new users, I have seen some new potentially good user scared away by having their accounts blocked and their work speedied, all since they did not understand the policies of Wikipedia. It is better to be nice and talk, but it can take long time to educate new users and I do not think I have that time right now. The prod has been removed BTW. --Stefan talk 03:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
You are right, I too have spent time educating new users this way. Conversely, I have also seen new editors come to Wikipedia with the idea that the purpose of Wikipedia is to be a promotion channel for their product or company. Wikipedia has been around long enough, and is well known enough, that the general public knows that isn't the purpose of Wikipedia. I was all for assuming good faith until I looked at the creator's edit history in which links to the new article were added, fairly irrelevantly, to various other articles such as wine. That suggested a strong conflict of interest. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I know what the user had in his history, that was how I found the page to start with and I did try to clean that up, thought I revert the wine page also, but must have been distracted. I'm still more of an assume good faith guy than you, I agree that this is a most probably a case of promotion, I just think that even today the average reader might not know about Wikipedia policies and after being told can be converted to producing good content. --Stefan talk 05:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I totally agree that we should treat new-user with kid gloves but I think we can tell when we have a true "new user" versus a single purpose account. Most new users start out making little edits here and there, correcting what they believe to be false info. Yeah, they may not know the policies of citing sources yet and NPOV but it clear that they are trying to contribute to the project. Perhaps I'm being overly skeptical but "legit" new users who are truly interested in contributing to the growth of an encyclopedia, rarely craft full-fledged promotional articles and then seek to that article in whatever place they can, regardless of appropriateness. To me, that screams WP:DUCK for a single-purpose account. AgneCheese/Wine 18:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
You might be right, but to me it screams a user that want to edit and starts with what is closest to his heart, give him a chance to prove that he is not a DUCK before you charge him, to me he has not done that yet. Remember you have been here for a long time, things you take for granted is not that obvious, I doubt I would be here if I 'discovered' Wikipedia today, I would probably have gotten a very bad reception today with all the policies. --Stefan talk 00:24, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

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Golan Heights....AGAIN

They're back. This time it is the Golan Heights Winery page. AgneCheese/Wine 00:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Anybody want to a buy a copy of all our German wine articles for $57 USD?

Looks like there is an interesting scam going over on Amazon where a "publisher" is compiling Wikipedia articles into a book format and selling them for hefty prices. You can see the village pump thread about it here Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_25#Free_Wikipedia_articles_are_on_sale_as_printed_books_for_50_dollars_each_in_Amazon.com_with_no_prior_warning. So I checked Amazon for wine related content from "Alphascript Publishing" and, sure enough, there are several feature wine-related titles from this company ranging in price from $31.58 USD for our Oregon wine related articles to $110 USD for the Alcoholic Beverages book. Perhaps I should take it as a compliment that the single article Acids in wine that I created is apparently viewed as being worth $89 USD as a separate title. AgneCheese/Wine 20:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Holy moly, that is ... wow! Is Valhalla for sale yet (oh god its not even good enough for spam!)  :-) I am sure this scam works too, they probably get some people not paying attention and ordering these "books". Apparently Alphascript has been doing this been this for at least a year.--Milowent (talk) 21:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
LOL! I think it is only a matter of time. They already have several Virginia related titles. I'm sure we might also eventually see a "Best of AfD" book soon-800 pages of the very best AfD battles on Wikipedia for only $130! AgneCheese/Wine 21:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Agne, you are given credit as an author for that Acids in Wine book. So I must ask, does the publisher have a royalty agreement with you? And how on earth did they get 212 pages from one article? ~Amatulić (talk) 01:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm not given credit as an author but, then again, I never expected to be. The lack of credit is not what bothers me but rather the overall scamming of people with freely available content. AgneCheese/Wine 18:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Ah, OK. I assumed the "Agnes" listed in the authors of those books was you. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Contributing under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (as all contributions to this site are currently) means that the contributions can be reused, even commercially, with the basic requirements being that they attribute work to the author and make the new work available under the same license. There is a non-commercial reuse version of the Commons license, but it is not used by en.Wikipedia. Camw (talk) 01:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Revisit Palotai Vineyard and Winery

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wine/Archive 10#Article to keep an eye on. I had intended to propose this for deletion last year, and am just now getting around to it as promised. It would be nice if it could be rescued, but after so much time I have grave doubts. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:26, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Morgan Creek Vineyards

The deletion debate has lots of civil, un-heated discussion, largely between me and the author. It's another case of coverage consisting of many trivial mentions and a couple of profiles. Is that significant? No consensus yet. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Does Master of Wine imply notability?

See Debra Meiburg, not sure how common/hard MW is, maybe it is enough? --Stefan talk 05:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. It's probably far more difficult to get a PhD degree or a CPA credential. Those by themselves aren't enough for notability. If they were, we'd have articles on every PhD or CPA or PMP or PE or other credentialed person.
Debra Meiburg seems to have other claims to notability. The primary one, unfortunately, violates WP:CRYSTAL (being producer of a television show later this year). ~Amatulić (talk) 06:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
As someone who is actively working towards getting an MW, it is FAR more difficult then getting a PhD or CPA, which is why there are several thousands CPAs and people with doctorates in the world but only a few hundred (out of thousands who have tried) who have ever attained MW. Considering how difficult it is to achieve, I would think it should confer significant notability. AgneCheese/Wine 15:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
It's a bit difficult to compare. The theoretical/academic requirements for an M.W. (while considerable) must be considered to be significantly below that of, for example, a science Ph.D. - including viticulture or oenology. It could be well above CPA, though. :-) However, the demanding practical/wine tasting requirements (together with the requirements for previous industry experience and WSET qualifications) makes it altogether a very "odd beast" and obviously difficult to attain. Tomas e (talk) 19:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The vast difficulty factor aside, a classified MW could lead a life of obscurity leading to absolutely no RS coverage. It is what they subsequently make of it that determine the degree of public figure they become. In Norway we have 2 MWs, one notable (journalist, publisher, censor and quoted taste-pundit) and one not (importer-consultant, withdrawn scholar). As in any subject, the RS should decide, non? MURGH talk 21:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
In itself it must be insufficient. Meiburg's RS support seems quite thin yet, at 'mention-level' as wine judge, organizer or fresh MW inductee. The current text seems weakly modified of the MWsite bio promo, not far from COPYVIO, and needs some sober cleaning. I think there could be a case in AFD for userfying until sufficient RS exists, but then again that might not be far off. MURGH talk 08:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Murgh that an M.W. by itself isn't enough. There should be a significant number of M.W.s who work as wine buyers and the like (for what it was originally designed), and who couldn't be considered as notable. It's of course those M.W.s who are into more "public careers" as wine writers and wine educators who have made these two letters well known. Tomas e (talk) 19:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I still believe that the sheer level of difficulty and, most notably, the rarity of achieving an MW is a significant claim of notability. (According to the US census in 2000, about 1% of the population, over 2 million people, had doctorates while there are less than 300 MWs in the whole world). In some ways you can see MWs on par with a very difficult to achieve award in a specialize field such as the Turing Award. There are many biography articles of individuals whose only claim to notability is that they have made a rare and very difficult achievement such as earning a professorship or chair like the Wolfson Professor of Criminology or other notable and rarely earned chairs in Cambridge. Achieving a Master of Wine is essentially the highest level of achievement one can make in the field of wine and that should carry some weight. AgneCheese/Wine 00:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

It's rare because few people pursue it. Yes, it is difficult. So is passing the California bar exam. The difference is that a huge population tries to pass the bar exam (and many fail). I'm skeptical that MW is any different from any other professional credential if you look at them proportionally. I'm not trying to belittle it, but your argument is based on the population being small (not a claim of notability) as well as your personal perception of its difficulty (and yet you apparently don't know the difficulty faced getting a credential in other professional fields). ~Amatulić (talk) 04:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
So few pursue it because it is so difficult to achieve. The amount of knowledge and skill required to achieve an MW is immense, requiring indepth comprehension of chemistry, biology, geology, business, history, economics, geography, microbiology and....oh yeah, actually knowing and being able to identify wines with impeccable precision while blind tasting. Despite the millions of people across the globe that are tangibly connected to wine (either by working in the industry-vineyard, winery, retail, marketing, education-or just being an enthusiast) it takes a very rare breed to embark on the long journey towards achieve an MW. There is a reason why reliable sources refer to it as the "the wine professional's grail" with an insanely low success rate of around 15%. Hell, more than twice that amount typically pass the California bar, in an average year, and the success rate for many PhD and professional credential are similarly higher than that for achieving an MW. AgneCheese/Wine 15:49, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Without trying to make the M.W. sound easier than it is, unlike professorships, I haven't seen any requirements for truly original or creative contributions to the field, much less excellence in such contributions. It rather seems to require relatively broad knowledge, ability and experience at a high level. So the comparison with major professorial positions and prestigious academic awards is way off. Perhaps it's better compared with a licence to practice medicine in a surgical field - that will also require theoretical schooling (incidentally, considerably above the level of an M.W. - but not at all as deep in any one area as a Ph.D. in mathematics), practical skills with the knife (or whatever) and - I hope - a demonstrated ability to successfully deal with patients and the hospital environment while being an intern. While most of us readily recognise a surgeon as a highly qualified professional (and more so than most other health professionals), far from all surgeons are notable enough for Wikipedia articles. However, surgeons that pioneer new surgical procedures, or write textbooks, or popularise medicine in media, are likely to be notable enough for articles. So, an M.W. who is a wine buyer or head of quality control for an importer is unlikely to be notable, while an M.W. who authors several wine books is likely to be notable. Tomas e (talk) 13:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is a link to some info on Masters of wine http://www.mastersofwine.org/en/about/faq.cfm it states there are currently 279 Masters of Wine, living in 22 different countries, although it depends on what a master of wine has done to be deemed noteworthy.SpringSummerAutumn (talk) 17:41, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The Vines of Mendoza, notable?

See The Vines of Mendoza, looks very un-notable to me, but it has a lot of references, the page have been deleted in March as G11, but looks like this try have lots of references, many very weak, but there is some that probably makes this hard to AFD. Comments? --Stefan talk 13:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

My personal preference is to set a fairly low bar for notability (we're not going to build a better encyclopedia by cutting out verifiable content; it's not as though this article obscures more-notable articles or makes the book too heavy for the shelf). However, the G11 problem is a bigger concern. Is it possible to rewrite it to look more like an encyclopedia article than an advert?
bobrayner (talk) 14:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
My personal preference is to set a fairly high bar for notability. Such a bar is set, some would say, by the draft guidelines WP:WINETOPICS. But even by that standard the coverage is still good. Yes, some of the references are weak. But others are actually quite good - complete articles about this company in international publications. The article could use some rewording to indicate that this company has a unique business model, recognized by the likes of Bloomberg and Investors Business Daily. Did they pioneer this business model? The references suggest that but at this point, coming out and saying so would constitute original research. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Nigel Tollerman

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nigel Tollerman - groan... I sure wish there were clearer guidelines to settle these differences of interpretation. In this case, the argument is about whether a huge number of trivial mentions in reliable sources establishes notability.

I don't particularly care whether this article is deleted or kept. I argued to delete, although I don't disagree with the "keep" proponent's argument that guidelines aren't policies and can be disregarded in certain instances. But to me, arguing that countless trivial mentions establishes notability is analogous to death by a thousand cuts. If the thousandth cut kills the victim, how many trivial sources are required for notability? Where do you draw the line? ~Amatulić (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Category:Vintners is up for discussion

I don't know if it's just me, but in the 2,5 months Article alert bot has been down I never seem to know what AfDs, PRODs or whatchamacallem that's ongoing - clearly frustrating. By pure coincidence, I just happened to bump into a proposal to merge Category:Vintners into Category:Winemakers: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 June 10#Category:Vintners. Perhaps it makes sense in non-professional AmE usage (where it seems the terms have been mixed up), but since a vintner is a wine trader, they are not the same to me. It wouldn't harm to have some project input I guess. And we clearly need an article vintner rather than a redirect to winemaker. Tomas e (talk) 16:02, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know the bot was down. What do we do to restore it? ~Amatulić (talk) 17:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd send him a bottle of reasonably good wine as a bribe if it would help. Unfortunately he didn't leave his real name or an address. :-) Tomas e (talk) 22:31, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Ah, it seems that a change in the login API broke the bot, the author is currently inactive, and hasn't released the code, so the bot was shut down. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:07, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I sent email to the bot operator (not the author), who said that he released the bot to a few other trusted people who are trying to get it working again. In the meantime, the New Article bot still works, and I have put its output on the main project page. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:45, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Tagging for WPWine via the WPFood template

I hadn't seen this done in a while, but we had a user which removed the {{WikiProject Wine}} template from two articles and replaced it with the parameter "wine=yes" in the {{WikiProject Food and drink}} template. The prime example is here. This leads to a loss of the importance assessment for this project, so I reverted those changes. I think we had a discussion about this a fairly long time ago, when the change to the WPFood template was implemented by someone from that project, and we agreed we didn't want this project treated as a task force with WPFood or to have our project tagging conform to the standards that are decided by WPFood. To avoid future misunderstandings, shouldn't we have the "wine" parameter completely removed from the WPFood template? Tomas e (talk) 15:05, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I would agree. It is simply not needed. AgneCheese/Wine 17:10, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree it isn't needed, but the WikiProject Food and Drink folks have every right to stick a "Wine" identifier in their template, if they want to.
What I strongly disagree with is the removal of another WikiProject's template. They have no business removing the WikiProject Wine template from any article. That editor did the same thing with WikiProject Spirits. I have reverted all those edits. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:38, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
As the person who designed the food & drink tag and took the heat with the resulting furor over my impertinence in including the project options without properly discussing it (WP:Bold is good in practice anyway). The additional project and task force fields in the {{wpfood}} do carry the assessment ratings over for the various WikiProject assessment, so {{wpfood|wine=yes|class=B|importance=mid}} would in fact place the article in the proper categories. The idea at the time was to allow a user to tag overlapping articles quickly in a single pass without crowding multiple templates on a single page, while also encouraging a spirit of community in the various related food and drink projects. The down side of this is that certain specialty fields that are included in your {{wine}} tag are not found in the food tag.
In regards to the removal of your tag from an article, that was improper on the part of the editor who did so. I would suggest that you nicely explain to him the purpose behind the wine field in the food tag and the removal of other projects tags in a wholesale manner is improper and explain the correct way of tagging an article. --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 21:34, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
The editor who did that stated that he has discontinued the tagging practice. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I absolutely considered it a good faith edit from the start, it's just that I disagree with using common templates and instead recommend the use of {{WPBS}} for anyone thinking that multiple project tags take up too much space. It should be possible to assess importance separately for each project. Tomas e (talk) 14:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

"Occitan wine"?

In the last days, 92.146.97.81 (talk · contribs) has added Category:Occitan wine to a number of articles and categories. Today, this user added this category to all individual AOC articles within a number of AOC categories previously categorised. This clearly goes against WP:CAT principles and will be reverted by me. But I must say that I question the whole concept of "Occitan wine", and in particular its use for our category system. While Occitania is clearly an existing, primarily linguistic concept, "Occitan wine" is a redlink, and does not appear with an entry in Oxford Companion to Wine. I also can not find an article about this in frwiki (it should be Vignoble d'Occitanie or something similar) and I have never seen "Occitan wine" used to sell wines from southern France, and then I include merchants in French-speaking countries. (Vin de Pays d'Oc shares an "Oc" with Languedoc and Occitania, and not out of coincidence, but that's a very specific usage.) And this lack of use of the term is not really surprising since there isn't really very much that connects all of "Occitania" from a historical-viticultural point of view; the different wine regions of southern France share neither grape varieties, wine styles or wine trading patterns. By the way, this edit betrays a certain unfamiliarity with wine terms on behalf of the IP number; neither Hermitage AOC nor Sauternes AOC are actually Vin de Pays d'Oc (although at least this editor wouldn't mind if they were priced that way...). This means that I can't see "Occitan wine" as a meaningful category of any use to our readers. So I guess that my conclusion is that the category should go to WP:CFD, but I'd though I'd hear here first if anyone has any inputs on the term "Occitan wine". Tomas e (talk) 11:44, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Category nominated for deletion, for info. N-HH talk/edits 20:45, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Rasteau AOC

So, Rasteau has been elevated to AOC-status. The current Rasteau AOC is a small stub on the sweet Rasteaus, but we should probably get the article up on at least Beaumes de Venise AOC level. We have a bit of information in the Côtes du Rhône Villages AOC article we can use. But it definitely need considerable attention. I've got some more info I can put in it later, and I'm going to the area in a fortnight - prolly take som pictures. Anyone know any significant geographical markings etc. that I should look for in Rasteau (or any other southern Rhone appellation) that we haven't got decent images of yet?--Nwinther (talk) 10:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The French article fr:Rasteau (VDN) has one landscape image, but it's not exactly a vineyard closeup. Any addition of images would of course be very appreciated! Checking out what's already available in Commons, I would say that vineyard images of Lirac and pictures of the facilities of major producers (including those of Châteauneuf-du-Pape) seems to be lacking - if you happen to stop by outside Rayas, Beaucastel, Clos de Papes or any of the other "big names". Tomas e (talk) 13:06, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do.--Nwinther (talk) 11:27, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

VIVC domaine name change

The Vitis International Variety Catalogue, which is used as a reference in many of our grape articles, primarily as a reference for pedigrees and synonyms, has had its domaine name/URL changed. It is now vivc.de instead of vivc.bafz.de, as the bafz.de domaine has been deactivated. Just removing the "bafz" part seems to restore proper links; it seems that the index for database entries is unchanged. I've updated a few links, but far from all. Tomas e (talk) 20:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, there are a ton of such links remaining on Wikipedia. Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&target=*.vivc.bafz.de
This should be the job of a bot, not manual labor. A bot for updating links must exist somewhere. I have initiated a request for a bot to do this work at Wikipedia:Bot requests. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Turns out there are a few active bots here for dealing with link rot. I copied the request to DeadLinkBOT's talk page also. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Excellent, I see that the bot request has already been dealt with! Tomas e (talk) 08:00, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry you had to spend time fixing so many of them by hand. I guess it's good to remember: if there's a mundane repetitive task to be done on Wikipedia, chances are somebody has created a bot to do it. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW, if anyone is interested in the Commons Wine Label Saga...

If you haven't looked at the deletion discussion in several weeks, it seems that consensus and the legal opinions of the Wikipedia Foundation's lawyer has essentially allowed images of wine labels to be used unless there is a complaint from a winery. AgneCheese/Wine 00:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Good to hear - for a long time I've assumed that the issue would come up with the risk of mass deletions. That's why I now and then try to remember to now and then take photos of wine in a glass + the bottle it comes from. My understanding has alwats been that this combination should be unproblematic since it then shows an object of utility (or whatever the term is). BTW, I liked the phrase "This is art and should be deleted" in connection with one of my photos. Taken out of context it is quite funny. :-) Tomas e (talk) 09:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
That is surprising. I lost heart with following the debate a while ago, fearing a drawn out but inevitable conclusion on the side of strict interpretation of the letter of the law. From a legal perspective, I think Mr. Matulić states the bottom line well when pointing out the *long* odds of a wine producer pursuing copyright justice for their products being spotted in some media. MURGH talk 10:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah that's good news. For an issue which is primarily a legal one, its nice to actually have a lawyer provide an opinion.--Milowent (talk) 12:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
But if you read the page, it seems like consensus disagrees with the lawyer. Go figure. I added my own $0.03 for good measure. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that we had a deletion a couple little over two weeks ago: Commons:Deletion requests/File:GrandsCrus 1.jpg. If anyone feels like it, it would probably be worthwhile to try to get the file restored - I think it was the five Bordeaux Premier Grand Crus of 1855 (and 1973). Tomas e (talk) 21:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure who to take this to on Commons and plead for undeletion but I feel the time now is not too soon. There are at least a few pics that were deleted due to reasons that later seemed less relevant. I do list File:GrandsCrus 1.jpg, Image:Cantemerle bottles.JPG, Image:Haut-Médoc bottles.JPG but I have a feeling there were more that were deleted that have a case for overturning. Anyone remember more of these? MURGH talk 08:08, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Bacio Divino

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bacio Divino.

This seems to me like a borderline case, but it may be possible to rescue the article. For instance, I found that Parker gives it a review here: [1] -- although I'm not sure that every winery reviewed by Parker is automatically notable. The other sources I have found are in the "trivial mention" category. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant

New article, relevant to this project. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Nice work. I think you brought it a bit beyond start-class though. I'd give it at least C class. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! :) -- Cirt (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Do we really need lists like this?

I believe Agne hails from Oregon, but the edit history of List of Oregon wineries and vineyards, surprisingly, doesn't show her involvement.

This is a list of mostly redlinks, consisting of mostly of wineries that I'll wager are unlikely ever to meet our criteria for inclusion. As such, the list appears to fail meet some of the criteria of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

A list of mostly redlinks isn't useful. Removing the redlinks would make the article duplicate Category:Oregon wineries. Removing the Wikilinks would cause the article to be a directory of information, which Wikipedia is not.

I don't see the point. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Relevant AFD - Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant

Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant

This article has been sent to AFD, discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

It's turned into another Valhalla debate. To be honest, I find the arguments from the deletion proponents compelling; they are the same arguments used by many of us in this Wine Project to advocate deletion of Valhalla. The only difference is that for wineries, we have a proposed guideline to clarify the criteria for inclusion in the context of wine. There isn't such a proposed guideline (to my knowledge) for restaurants. Therefore, the criteria can be interpreted as a 'keep' for this article. That's why I haven't changed my 'keep' vote yet. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
It's of course easy to feel some sort of sympathy for an article that is well-written and well-referenced. But do more than a handful of wine bars globally, even upscale ones, really belong in an encyclopedia? Perhaps there is less risk of Wikipedia (and this project) being swamped by articles on non-notable wine bars, since they probably only number thousands where small wineries number hundreds of thousands. But I find myself having a more difficult time thinking that individual wine bars is worth covering in an encyclopedia, compared to wineries. And in comparison to restaurants, I have never heard of a wine bar that anyone travels to from afar, which people do for restuarants at some level. In my mind, this influences the way I think about notability. Tomas e (talk) 13:56, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Wine Improvement Drive

Just came acros the WID-page and wondered why it stopped. The way I see it, Bordeaux bogged down and it derailed the WID. I wasn't part of the WID originators, but I think the idea is terrific - even if it fails to achieve the stated goals, i.e. improve Bordeaux to a GA-status. But why don't we just recognize that fact, that sometimes a subject needs further maturation - and move on to another subject?--Nwinther (talk) 12:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I haven't seen the WID really "working" in quite a while. My experience from other WP projects indicates that it's usually easier to focus quality-improvement drives on improving articles that are really lacking in quality. Getting a rather extensive article on a fairly broad subject up to a high quality often requires access to good sources &c. For those wine-interested "editors-at-large" who want something to "chew on" (or would that be swallow, in this case? :-) ) to improve the project I'd recommend having a look at the "tasks" part of our project page. Tomas e (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
So why don't we do just that: Focus on articles that are really lacking? The matter really got me going, when I read about the Rasteau upgrade to AOC. By aiming WID at articles that have some degree of actuality it's perhaps easier to mobilize the editors to dust off their sources and make some reasonable additions to subjects that have until recently stayed well below the radar. After a month or so, surely something else pops up in the news and this becomes the next WID. It's also a matter of keeping the energy/synergy going with "new and interesting subjects" spurring off debates and attention to otherwise forgotten articles and subjects, rather than the odd mentioning of a small californian winery that's trying to get some commercial attention through Wikipedia.--Nwinther (talk) 11:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I got so accustomed to seeing French wine on the Wine Improvement Drive banner for the past three years, that it no longer registered in my mind. Part of the problem may be one of expertise; I can edit such articles (and I have done so for French wine) for conformance to style standards and content guidelines, but I can't write knowledgeably on the actual subject. Another problem may be interest. My interests tend non-French topics, and on Wikipedia that means I focus more on specific grape varieties and winery articles. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
That's exactly what I'm going for. Surely, after one year of minor edits to an article (of which none are due to the WID), it's reasonable to move on. There's dozens of wine-related subjects to which I have nothing to add due to lack of knowledge. But with a more dymanic WID, every once in a while, there'll be a subject on which I happen to have some good sources or whatever, keeping me focused on the wine-project.--Nwinther (talk) 11:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Wine WikiProject
article assessment
That's fine with me. There are plenty of articles on the WID waiting list. May as well move on. I suggest skipping Bordeaux as too closely related to the current WID subject. ~Amatulić (talk) 15:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Would we then want to highlight, say, half a dozen articles of mid- to high-importance, which would need bringing up from stub- to start- or C-class, or need referencing or de-POV-ing rather than a single, large article? Tomas e (talk) 17:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I would imagine a theme - like "Rhone Wine" - not limited to the Rhone Wine article but to all articles that fall under this category. Perhaps if the WID-theme is already a c-class (or above) article, so it's relatively easy to improve the "mother"-article as well. I often stop at B- or GA-articles as improving them is such a bother. Somebody already made a good article, and if I want to do something, I have to rethink the entire article - and maybe my version isn't that great after all - so I refrain. However, if the article is C-class (or below), I'm not ruining someone else's great work, or adding something doesn't make the article look stoopid, as it wasn't so great to begin with. And suddenly, I've raised something from Start to C etc. Anyway, that's my two cents.--Nwinther (talk) 08:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This is where our nifty assessment grid on WP:WINE comes in handy. Click on any cell to get a list of articles. Of those rated top-importance, you'll see 8 C-class articles (including French wine), and 23 B-class articles. There are 41 high-importance articles rated start class. Some are marked with the ♦ symbol to indicate they are selected for release on a Wikipedia CD; perhaps those should be concentrated on. I've copied it to this section for convenience. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Wine articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Wine articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Gad. We're volunteers here. We don't work to deadlines, especially for a list that huge. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Lol. Yes, merciless workload and deadline. MURGH talk 18:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup Listing

I am writing WolterBot's replacement, CleanupListingBot. You can view the beta cleanuplistings at Wikipedia:Wine/Reports/Index. Let me know what you think.Smallman12q (talk) 21:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks nice!
I'd rather not see the date added to the title of the cleanup listings. Just have the same page with categories, and the same page with articles, and update it. That is, instead of Wikipedia:Wine/Reports/Cleanup by category for Sep 2010(0) I'd rather see Wikipedia:Wine/Reports/Cleanup by category.
I don't see the sense in maintaining a historical record of pages that have needed cleanup. Maintaining a constant, unchanging title makes it easier to watchlist as well as transclude from other pages if needed. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
You sure? When I asked on IRC, several sysops said they'd prefer to have an archive to track progress...I could always add an option to exclude the date though... Also, I was wondering if I should add a column for resolved/not resolved.Smallman12q (talk) 22:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Progress can be tracked easily in the diffs of a single page. Even easier if your bot includes a summary table showing the counts in each category at the top of the page. Then tracking with the diffs is trivial.
Alternately, you could have it archive old pages with their dates, keeping the current page with a static name. But that seems redundant when we have diffs.
A resolved/not resolved column doesn't seem necessary to me. When an issue is resolved, the tag goes away, and the entry disappears from the page next time it's updated. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Teran

Hello, WP Wine.

The teran article seems to, short though it may be, contradict itself somewhat. It starts out saying stuff to the extent: "Teran is grown in Slovenia and Italy, and also Croatia, though that one isn't really teran." Than it goes on to specify the terra rosa soil needed for teran production and again only mentions places in Italy and Slovenia, but not Croatia - all this while being marked as part of the Croatia WP. It would seem some loose definitions are being used here as to authenticity, and maybe the article could use a bona fide wine expert to define the exact extent of the teran wine region. I'm no such expert, but I bet there are some lurking around here. Now, I owe you guys an explanation: I'm Slovene, and if there's one thing my countrymen love doing it's finding stuff that is supposed to be our own special distinct features, so it's no wonder I'd been raised from since I can remember into believing teran grew exclusively in Slovenia. I know now that teran is grown in Italy as well, and I am aware Croatia produced teran is also available. However, the three nations I mention have had their share of animosity and mutual disregard (there have been silly cultural disagreements over such items as prosciutto, cave critters or (I kid you not) bees) and I fear some of that might be at play here as well. Ok, to be completely forthcoming, I'm doubtful in regard to the addition of Croatia (my doubts are strengthened by the wikilinks, but more on that later on). So what I'm asking is: can anybody bring an objective, authoritative source into this? My own personal doubts aside, I don't mind if it says Croatian teran is the real thing, as long as it is from somebody with some authority. I don't particularly trust local webpages with emphatic praise for the wine-growing locales to be completely objective on this, for reasons stated above.

Now, for the wikilinks: there are four articles on this wine: English, Italian, Slovene, Croatian. The English you can read for yourselves. The Italian states teran is a wine grown near Trieste in the Italian part of the Karst plateau and also in Slovenia, and has it categorized under DOC wines from Trieste; DOCG wines produced from the terrano grape. The Slovene article is a bit more thorough: the lede says teran is a red wine produced in Karst from the refosco grape (note: refosco and terrano seem to be synonyms), goes on to describe its qualities and assumed healing properties. The article then specifies the growing region (between the Bay of Trieste and the valley of Vipava, i.e. in a small area extending from Italy to Slovenia) and goes into more detail on growing, color and taste. The cats are Slovene wines, Red wines and Wines. The Croatian article says teran is an authentic Istrian wine, and briefly describes its color and taste. The cats are Red wines and Authentic Croatian wines. (Note: nowhere in the article is Slovenia or Italy mentioned, although the topmost sliver of the Istrian peninsula is Slovene). You can see the Croatian article plays a somewhat different tune.

So... If you read this far, sorry for being this lengthy (well, I felt I had to make the case clear since this wine is not particularly widely known (but don't tell any Slovenes I said that :)), and I hope you can step into this low intensity proving ground and help clear it up. TomorrowTime (talk) 20:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll check into it. The article is indeed a bit unclear about what Teran is defined as - it's on a wine, but seems to be not on a grape variety, and it's a little unclear if it is actually about a protected designation of origin. Tomas e (talk) 12:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks quite useful! Tomas e (talk) 16:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Reliable Online wine encyclopedias

If there are some reliable objective wine encyclopedias or other good refrence sources online it may be worthwhile for the WikiProject Wine to display on the WikiProject Wine page a recommended list of online sources, or perhaps place a list of some reliable online guides on the 'Notability (wine topics)' page, or in the discussion section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpringSummerAutumn (talkcontribs) 16:17, 23 November 2010

For general subjects I often use Oxford Companion to Wine (OCW), and sometimes World Atlas of Wine or Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia, but they are printed books. (I think the first two are available online to those who have signed up to Jancis Robinson's website and paid the annual fee.) As to general online sources, some that come to mind are:
  • The text of the 2nd edition of OCW (1999) at [2] in a not too easily navigable format. Of course, the 2006 edition is to prefer, but the 1999 edition can be a starting point for some subjects.
  • Winedoctor's website has quite well-written and well-researched overviews of various regions.
  • Decanter's news section has a rather good coverage of "recent events" in the wine world.
Tomas e (talk) 20:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Synonyms and DABs

As some of you may have noticed, I've been doing work on grape articles including redirecting synonyms. I'm doing this for the reason I discussed with Tomas on my talk page but also because redirects are cheap. For 90%+ of redirects, there is only one location and such no problem. But there are a fair amount of overlapping redirects which necessitate the use of a DAB link up top. Again, for the majority this is little problem since there is usually only one or two overlaps but as I continue to work further on these articles I am encountering cases like Folle Blanche which seems to share a couple syns with everyone. I think from an aesthetic view having more than 2 DAB notices up top is unsightly so I'm thinking once I'm done to go back and create some "catch all" DABs but I would like some thoughts on the best way to do this. AgneCheese/Wine 04:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

German wine classification

FYI, I've nominated Wachau wine for a DYK with a hook that prominently links to the German wine classification. Looking at that article, I'm wondering if its needs a little tidying? With all the changes to the German wine laws in the last 10 years, the article has a distinct patchwork feel and can be somewhat confusing for readers. I just think it needs to be a little more user friendly and approachable, making clear in the beginning what is the current usage, etc. Truth be told, I don't feel all that literate and up to date on what is going on with the German wine industry so I doubt I'm the best person. I'm wondering if anyone else wants to take a stab at it? AgneCheese/Wine 17:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"has a distinct patchwork feel and can be somewhat confusing" - sounds like it matches the classification systems well then ;) Agree that it needs a rework, but not quite sure how best to approach untangling it sorry. Camw (talk) 04:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Touché. I do think we need to move the most recent changes (like the New classes for dry wines section) up. But yeah, there is not any easy answers and there is a part of me that wonders if maybe we should split this up into at least two articles? Quality categories in German wine and Geographic classification in German wine with this main article providing a summary (essentially the overview section) with links. Normally I like to consolidate topics but this might be a case where less is more. AgneCheese/Wine 18:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask a favor?

Starting today I will be on holiday for a week with very little internet access (I promise I'll be back this time :P). I have two wine DYK noms outstanding Wachau wine and Hajji Firuz Tepe and was wondering if anyone would be willing to keep an eye on my talk page in case any issue pops up. I don't expect there to be a problem as both the articles and hooks are fully sourced and in the noms I specified which refs can be used for verification but with DYK these days you never know. Greatly appreciate it! AgneCheese/Wine 17:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll try but I very little experience DYK. Is there anything specific I need to know? --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 19:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I couldn't get back to you after your question but it looks like everything went fine. There is really nothing too specific with DYK, it is just sometimes reviewers have questions (like which sources references this claim) that or make suggestions (like adding an infobox, etc) that they would want answered before it appears on the main page. As I noted above, I wasn't expecting anything to come up because I usually cover my bases pretty well but then you just never know. Thanks for volunteering! AgneCheese/Wine 18:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

An idea to revitalize the Wine Improvement Drive for 2011

I don't know about you guys but I tend to edit best when I have some sort of focus or goal to work toward so I would like to revive WID. However, I think having a narrow focus on one large article probably contributed to people losing interest and the concept fizzling out. So I was thinking, why not bring the WID back but with a broader monthly theme (i.e. Italian wine articles, Viticulture related articles, etc) that could maybe touch on a variety of interests for Wine Project members. Rather than feel like you have to work on one article, maybe this broader goal could provide an opportunity for everyone to pick what they would like to work but still provide some project wide goal to focus on? I'm going to tinker with this idea a little more and flesh it out but I'm wondering if this idea might have some traction. AgneCheese/Wine 22:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is where I laid out more detail about the idea User:Agne27/Wine Improvement Drive 2011 with a proposed calendar and the 5-5-5 goals which I feel are realistic even though we really only 3-5 active members at the moment. But if this goes forward, I will try to be diligent about posting notices at the beginning of each month on WP:WINE member's pages about the theme with possible article creation/improvement ideas on topics. Let me know what you guys think. AgneCheese/Wine 23:06, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Looks good, go for it, I/we? need the encouragement/push. --Stefan talk 17:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If you guys need any help, I'm up for it. Bored silly on WP right now. --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 05:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh Jeremy, we can always use your template/organization skills :) One thing that would be particularly useful is a tracking table for our 5-5-5 goals that would ideally be both here, on the front WP:WINE page and near the top of the WP:WID page. When an editor has completed an article for one of the goals, they can edit the table with the article and their name so everyone can see the project's progress. Another useful tool would be some article talk page tags to help promote the drive. One tag would be for "main articles" (like for instance Mexico wine and California wine for January's proposed theme of North American wine) that encourages editors who visit these "main article" pages to consider editing related articles. Another tag would be for the talk pages of the articles who were directly improved by this drive (kinda like a DYK tag). AgneCheese/Wine 17:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

More Nigel Tollermans?

Two more somms/wine consultants that have lots of "in passing" references but I'm not sure if they pass WP:GNG-Jamie Drummond, Randy Caparoso and Joe Muscaglione. Any thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 07:27, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Randy Caparoso and Joe Muscaglione I say for sure should does not pass (with current references I have not tried to search for more), Jamie Drummond is a bit harder, both [3] and [4] are decent references, I still say that he is not notable, but I think that he would probably pass an AFD. --Stefan talk 17:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Crickey! More than a 1/3 of wine pages have some clean up tag

That seems like a crazy high number. A huge portion of it seems to be from articles needing coordinates. I'm not too familiar with the coordinate templates but is this something we can get a bot to do? AgneCheese/Wine 10:31, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I dont think there is any auotomatic way of adding coordinates, it must be done manually and is very hard and time consuming. I did a bit of clean up, but only simple low haning fruit. --Stefan talk 17:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Maybe you could post your question here: User talk:Xeno This editor uses Xenobot. This bot adds coordinates. Maile66 (talk) 03:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! I dropped a noted on his talk page. AgneCheese/Wine 04:42, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you think Tareq Salahi falls within WP:WINE's scope?

From the sources it looks like he was more a "wine executive" then a winemaker. But then the article does have the Oasis Winery merged into it and there is some discussion on the talk page about the winery. However, I'm not sure the winery would have ever passed WP:GNG or WP:WINERY if not for the White House Dinner Incident with Salahi. What are your thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 23:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Another interesting case Patricia Monaghan-an author of a wine book on Minnesota wine but is far more notability for her other interest. AgneCheese/Wine 02:14, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd say yes to Patricia - an author of a wine book should be of some interest to the project, even if it isn't their primary claim to notability. Not sure about the first subject, leaning towards yes as the ex-GM of a winery, but its probably borderline? Camw (talk) 02:36, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Michigan wine articles

Hello everyone - I noticed Agne27's recent post on WikiProject Michigan's talk page about a Michigan wine collaboration. I didn't see another section started here on this topic, but if I missed one, please feel free to move my comments - just let me know where you put them :) I live within fairly easy driving distance of several of the articles on Agne's list - Two Lads, Chateau Grand Traverse, the Leelanau and Old Mission AVA's, etc., and have access to many (if not all) of the wines produced there. Although I know little to nothing about wine, I would like to volunteer my services for any general help that anyone needs on these topics. Pictures of specific wines or wineries, general copyediting, reference cleanup or peer reviews, etc. I won't be of much help on the specialist, knowledge end, but I may be able to be of some help on the general end. I'll keep an eye on both this page and the Michigan Wikiproject's page, but please also feel free to ping me on my talk page if the collaboration gets off the ground or even if help is needed on just one or two articles. Dana boomer (talk) 03:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey Dana. Free use pictures would be a tremendous help, especially if they are uploaded to Commons. Copyediting and review would also be very valuable. I believe I have enough references to get at least stubs going on Chateau Grand Traverse and Two Lads Winery but having photos and some more details (I know there are some books on Michigan wines that would more likely be available at your local libraries than mine up in Washington State) would be great. AgneCheese/Wine 04:39, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

2011 Wine Improvement Drive

Starting out the New Year with New World Wine, focusing on the Northern Hemisphere wine regions of Canada, United States and Mexico. There is strength in collaboration as noted in the Michigan wine thread above, I didn't go to a number of related Wikiprojects to solicit their help on articles in their relevant areas. As stated before, our goal is by the end of the month to have a 5-5-5 improvement of articles related to Canadian, American and Mexican wines.

  • Five new article creations
  • Five stub kills taking a stub article till at least a stub
  • Five Clean up tags and/or Photo illustration. Find a related article with clean up tags and bring it up to standards or take an unillustrated article and fully illustrate it.

Editors can go anywhere their interest and/or time will take them. From Mexico to Canada, from hybrid grape articles to AVAs and VQAs, there is a diversity of people, places and wine styles. At User:Agne27/Wine Improvement Drive 2011/January, I've compiled a list of suggestion in different areas of interest including at least 5 BLPs related to the theme that could use sourcing improvement. There are also numerous wineries that have notability and clean up tags. Some of these just need a critical eye to see if they are salvageable or if they needed to be prodded or AfD but others can be salvaged and brought to standards with the tags removed. Then there are the Category:Wine articles needing photos related to the theme that just need a search through Commons or Flickr to see if there are any worthwhile free-use photos that can help illustrate the articles. It is possible to go above and beyond the 5-5-5 goal but I'm confident that as a project we can at least achieve these very manageable objectives in a month's time. AgneCheese/Wine 08:29, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Note: I'm currently working with Jeremy to come up with a tracking box that can appear on this page and the WP:WID2011 page where users can edit the box to input which article in the 5-5-5 goals they completed. Till then, feel free to note the article here if you like. AgneCheese/Wine 09:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for ur nice invitation for collaboration, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Connecticut#Collaboration with the Wine Project on Connecticut wine articles?. I hadn't heard of the Connecticut Wine Trail, but i'll take on trying to develop it over the next couple months. Could likely tour it and take pics later. Thanks for calling to CT editors attention; any help developing that article will be appreciated, too. :) Cheers, --Doncram (talk) 22:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I've added an article and followed the format that has been done by others prior. Should we be following the examples in the table instead? I read it as an intent to have a number down the left then having the article and author in each box to the right, although the template doesn't work like that at the moment. Camw (talk) 15:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Thats my fault, I was was thinking you wanted a table that counted what you have done (User A worked on 3 articles, 4 stubs and 2 photos). What is the exact way you need this to be done? I can still make any changes that are needed. --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 16:27, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I think it is more worthwhile to feature the articles themselves that have been improved. AgneCheese/Wine 04:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Are macaroni & cheese tasting events appropriate for a wine region article?

See Talk:Old Mission Peninsula AVA, though right now I am the only editor using the talk page for discussion. But an editor seems to be instance on keeping the "Calender of Events" of promotions, like a restaurant hawking its weekly live entertainment, such as the fable macaroni and cheese tasting event. AgneCheese/Wine 21:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thomcord grapes

Inspired by a DYK on the main page concerning grapes, I have created an article for the Thomcord variety, which happens to be my favorite... when I can find it! It has been nominated for DYK, and I plan to put it up for GAC and possibly FAC very soon. Writing about grapes (instead of lemurs—my specialty) was a very educational experience. Yet I'm worried that my lack of experience in this field may necessitate some attention from an expert. Would someone who is more knowledgeable of grapes please look over the article before I post it for GAC?

I realize that this is a table grape variety, not a wine grape. However, I figured the members of this project might be best suited to review it. I will also be posting this message on WikiProject Food and drink. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

...eh... I think I'll just nominate it for GAC now, but the FAC nomination will definitely wait for a feedback from one or both of these projects. I've also written an email to David Ramming (its creator) for his feedback as well. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Very awesome article! This article on a table grape is light years better than many of our wine grape articles. Great work. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with table grapes nor do I seem to have access to any sources beyond what you already have in the article. As for improvements, the lead could include a little more summary of some of the content in the rest of the article. I like the comparisons made between the Concord, Thompson and Thomcord and I almost wonder if you could make these into a table graph that goes from physical attributes (aborted seed size, skin, etc) to growing conditions to flavor profile, etc. AgneCheese/Wine 00:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the swift feedback! For the lead, specifically, which details do you want included? I thought I had covered the highlights from every major section. Did I miss some important point? However, I don't want to go into comparisons with other table grape varieties (other than the parents) in the lead. That would seem like too much detail.
I like the table idea, but unfortunately I don't have any academic sources for the Concord grape physical attributes. The only thing that could be included would be its color and taste. Otherwise I have comparable data for the Thompson Seedless grown in the same year and in the same area. I'm just hesitant because the table would look quite incomplete.
I'm almost wondering if this project should set up some kind of infobox for grapes, given how many varieties are out there. The infobox could contain parameters for a picture, production/cluster stats, berry stats, parentage, date/location of origin, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have time to adapt such a infobox template at this time. Is anyone up for the challenge? – VisionHolder « talk » 00:25, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Oops! I just noticed there is an infobox out there: {{Infobox grape variety}} Looks like I'll need to implement it in the article. Still, it would be nice if some of that additional information could be added to the template. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Alright, I've added an infobox, but it probably needs to be fixed up. (The template's directions weren't 100% clear to me.) – VisionHolder « talk » 00:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
And I've added a table per your request. Let me know if the wording looks okay. I'm not very good with grape "colors" and other formal aspects of their description. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay. I missed this on the watchlist. I like the table. It definitely hits some of the stuff I was thinking about. As for the lead, I just remembered how picky some GA reviewers can be about wanting details in the lead. A few can be very literal about WP:LEAD. It can depend on reviewer but I can see them wanting a least a few lines in the lead that summarizes more details from the Description section. AgneCheese/Wine 07:28, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
No problem. I've added almost all the details from the "Description" section to the lead. Let me know if you see any other issues. Otherwise someone's already claimed the GAC, and I'm just waiting for their comments. Feel free to comment at the upcoming FAC as well. – VisionHolder « talk » 17:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
"I realize that this is a table grape variety, not a wine grape." I've seen wine made from Concord grapes, so I'm willing to wager that somebody makes wine from Thomcord somewhere, especially in regions where chaptalization is permitted. Grapes are table grapes or wine grapes depending on what part of the world you're in. Viognier, for example, is a table grape in the UK, but a wine grape in more temperate latitudes. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
That's good to know. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything about it in the handful of sources I found. Thanks. – VisionHolder « talk » 19:49, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Would an uninvolved editor look at this emerging edit war?

I need to take step back before I start becoming uncivil, but one editor at Okanagan Valley (wine region) is having serious issue with the mountains of reliable sources (a small sampling of which can be found at Talk:Okanagan Valley (wine region). There is MUCH, MUCH more that could be cited), that describe parts of the Okanagan Valley as being a northern extension of the Sonoran Desert. Doesn't matter if it a book, scholarly paper, journal article, newspaper, museum or government organization this editor just dismissed them as propoganda and says they're not reliable sources because....well because he says so. I don't want to get into a 3RR revert war and I tried to make my case on the talk page but I need to take a step back. An objective thoughts or feedback would be appreciated. It is shame that this will probably derail the DYK nom. AgneCheese/Wine 21:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

What about an alternate hook so that it can still go through DYK while the desert issue is resolved? Camw (talk) 22:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Possibly, but technically the article would still be "unstable" which is something DYK tries to avoid featuring. AgneCheese/Wine 04:30, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I guess the idea would be that maybe if there is another hook, it isn't totally integral to an article about the wine region that it shares (or doesn't) a desert with Mexico and could perhaps be left out without being particularly detrimental to the article. Just a thought, as it seems to be generating drama well out of proportion to its importance. Camw (talk) 04:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah. I suppose we can just trim off the desert portion of the hook and leave the Champagne/Rheingau connection but maybe list some of the warm climate red varieties it grows. AgneCheese/Wine 04:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Have approved the alt hook. Shame that the desert one couldn't be used but at least it will still go through without being totally derailed. Camw (talk) 10:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Holy smokes! Now this guy wants to edit war over the lead even though his changes creates duplicate history sections, etc. AgneCheese/Wine 06:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Now while I can't explain the WP:OWN-ish behavior involving the lead, Skookum's strange assertion about all references to the Okanogan Sonoran being somehow tied to propaganda from the Nk'mip/Osoyoos tribe and his vehement campaign against them is starting to make sense now. Apparently Skookum once once worked for Nk'mip and had a conflict with them over his pony tail and quit. I guess in the "two days" he somehow got first hand knowledge of this "conspiracy" to quote "I'll dig out the copy of Nk'mip's tour-traning document, which I had at one point (if I still have it) and I know that "northern tip" phrase is in it, and it's also explained that they hired a biologist or ecologist to do a study saying what they wanted it to say". His behavior makes more sense now and, unfortunately, with this personal connection, I don't think there is going to be anyway to reason with him no matter how many reliable sources are put forth. It seems like he is just going to dismiss them all as somehow being connected to Nk'mip/Osoyoos "propaganda". I suppose we should just let him have his way with this article. Lord knows a page that will probably get less than 200 views in a month is not worth the headache of butting heads with an editor waging a personal campaign for "truth". AgneCheese/Wine 04:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't had a chance to try to put anything together on the lead for a proposed compromise, has been an unavoidably busy week here. Was thinking of writing an article on Nk'mip Cellars next, I hope it doesn't generate more drama. Camw (talk) 09:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
No problem Camw. I appreciate you stepping up to provide some level-headed mediation. AgneCheese/Wine 00:24, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
You're welcome. I think you two were getting close-ish to working out a compromise anyway, but doesn't hurt to give it a bit of a push along and try to avoid more antagonism. The sheer volume of text generated out of this single objectionable line/claim is astounding, the original line is 151 characters, here and at the other two venues it has seen 98467 characters of discussion/arguing! It will be good to put that energy towards more useful items once this gets sorted out! Camw (talk) 01:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Eh, I don't know if we would have gotten this compromise done without some outside injection of sanity. Skookum seemed to take a very aggressive approach with me and didn't seem open to me making the edits to the article. (I lost track of the number of Wikipedia policies, both real and WP:MADE UP, that he accused me of violating) That was one reason I took a step back from editing the article directly, especially after his blow up over the lead, because I didn't want to risk antagonizing him further. So far it seems like he is respecting your 3rd party involvement which is very hopeful. I agree, it is good to put this energy towards more productive avenues. AgneCheese/Wine 01:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
LOL....okay, maybe he is not being so receptive to a compromise. As evidence by his recent edit summary "simply reply, I've made a good and brief, correct and not misleading, compromise- accept it", it seems that we either need to accept his edit or...well I don't know. The headache continues? I do love how he then accuses WP:WINE of WP:OWN right after that. :P AgneCheese/Wine 07:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

History of wine on WP:ITN

Just an FYI if anyone hasn't noticed but the History of Wine has gotten a lot of Main Page exposure due to a featuring on ITN. "Archaeologists announce the discovery of the world's oldest known winery, believed to be over 6,000 years old, in a cave in Armenia." There was an article created on the winery Areni-1 winery that is not yet featured on ITN but is worth putting on watchlists if it does get any increased exposure. AgneCheese/Wine 07:10, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, some very impressive page view stats for History of Wine. In the 3 days it has been featured on the main page so far it has garnered more than 86,000 views. AgneCheese/Wine 07:52, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

What to do with The Great Led Zeppelin Wine Pairing?

It seems like a notable topic with 3rd party referencing, but at the same time what makes a wine tasting event notable? In terms of overall wine events this obviously pales in comparison to something like the Judgement of Paris wine tasting, etc. I don't think the article should be deleted but the difficulty in finding suitable links to de-orphan it (outside of a Wikipedia:Walled garden with the founders) is a red flag that this article probably should be merged somewhere. Any thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 10:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I prodded it back it October 2009, and I can't say I've changed my mind since then. Some years ago there was an inflation in articles on Judgment of Paris "remakes" of questionable notability, so I guess some people may have gotten the idea that writing articles on tastings was a good idea. And I don't share that view. Tomas e (talk) 20:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
While I agree with your sentiment that resulted in you prodding it, I also agree with Camw's reason for removing the prod tag after some sources were added. This is really something that should go to AfD.
Not only are there notability concerns, but also WP:NOTHOWTO policy.
I gotta admit, the article made me chuckle. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:19, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

FYI - Cava discussion on Sparkling wine

See Talk:Sparkling_wine#Copied_material_on_Cava. There is a side issue about the material on Cava (Spanish wine) being wholesale copied without attribution but a larger scope issue for Wine Project members is whether Cava should have a separate article. I can see multiple issues involving micro-stubs or duplicate articles on every single other regional sparkler but I'll concede that the other editor in the discussion makes a good point about the Sparkling wine, Spanish wine and Catalan wine situation. If consensus leads towards Cava having a separate article, I will gladly abide by it--providing that separate article is not mass plagiarism of unattributed copying of course. AgneCheese/Wine 21:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe that Cava could be an article on its own, since it is a separate DO with a huge production volume. I have the same opinion about e.g. Sekt (which has a lot of interesting history) and Crémant de Loire. So in my opinion, the sparkling wine area is over-merged. This of course is not the same as to say that there should be repetition between articles. However, I understand some of your concerns, because it can look a little strange to break out just one of the major national sparkling wine designations. If Crémant, Cava and Sekt were broken out and extended at the same time, it would look better. Tomas e (talk) 20:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

January WID recap

I've moved the January table over to the WP:WID page and the results were extremely impressive. We exceeded the 5-5-5 goal in every category with over 27 articles improved. What's even more exciting is that the improvements surely went beyond just these articles with the total number of wine articles with cleaning up tags decreasing from over 33% to now 30.2%. Between article creation and expansion, the project also saw several DYK hitting the main page. Again, tremendous work and a big kudos to everyone who contributed. Since it is only a couple hours away from February, I went ahead and launched the next month's WID initiative for French wines. This is obviously a huge topic and, while our coverage is certainly significant, there are plenty of articles that can be created or improved. Here's looking forward to another successive month! AgneCheese/Wine 08:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Well done to all of you who gave serious time. About that CleanupListing, might there be a way to weed out those that appear merely because they're marked as "articles needing coordinates"? It doesn't seem fair to equate that with the more serious issues, but if it's hardwired into the tool.. deMURGH talk 12:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Grape questions (related to a FAC)

Thomcord is now at WP:FAC, and there are a few questions at its review that I would appreciate suggestions on how to answer.

First, a reviewer wants clarification on: "The plant is not restricted for propagation and distribution." The source does not offer any additional information. What restrictions often face grape varieties, and is there a reliable source I can cite?

Another question involves the terms used to describe the grape's color. I have raised the question at Template talk:Infobox grape variety, but have yet to receive a response. The infobox requires the color term "noir", whereas the grape is described in the literature as being "blue-black". (The Concord is described as "blue".) Is "noir" just the general term? Or do we need to adjust the template to accept a few more colors?

Lastly, the cluster is described in the literature as "medium to slightly loose tightness". Is this a technical term? Personally, I don't see the point of this question, but I'd like to get a good answer since the question was raised. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Typically the phrase "The plant is not restricted for propagation and distribution", means that it passes the quarantine standards for most states and countries which allows licensed nurseries to bring the vines in with relatively little hassle. I say "relatively little", since there are states like California and countries like France and Germany which have extremely strict quarantine standards that would likely require additional obstacles and bureaucracy for Thomcord growers to go through. Most countries have quarantine standards of some sort for plant material, particularly after the phylloxera epidemic, but this is not really unique to grapevines. To my knowledge, all new crops have to go through them. While we don't have a wine article that deals with it (and Plant quarantine is kinda pathetic), I wonder if WP:PLANT might know of a better article that discusses these restrictions?
I'm not a huge fan of the grape variety infobox exactly because of items like the noir confusion it encourages. A noir grape is typically a grape with enough phenolic compounds in the skin to produce a red wine. The actual color appearance of the skin could range from ruby red to blue to purple to black and a range in between. I would assume that like it parent Concord grape, Thomcord would like be able to make a red wine if the skins went through maceration with the must, so it can be called a noir grape. But since it is really more of a table grape, you probably shouldn't use the term noir at all and just go with the blue/black coloring description.
One of these days we'll get to Grape cluster description article (or some better title) because the description of grape clusters are very important to the study of ampelography (another article is sore need of attention). While there is no "official terminology", fill of clusters are typically described in viticulture texts along a scale of straggly--very loose--loose--well-filled--compact--very compact. Looking at the picture of Thomcord, it looks more to me to be along the "well-filled" description (meaning you can't really see the individual pedicel that attaches to each berry). While with a loose cluster like Thompson seedless, you often do see the pedicel. The description "medium to slightly loose tightness" is not wrong, and in fact probably creates a better visual description then the jargon of "well filled" but it isn't really a technical term. Perhaps you should use both terms? Describe it as the jargon "well-filled" and use "medium to slightly loose tightness" to clarify the jargon? AgneCheese/Wine 20:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the detailed and very helpful reply! (I really appreciate your help all along the way with this article.) I will visit WP:PLANT to see if they can think of anything to help with the first one. Regarding the grape variety infobox, maybe we could change it to handle multiple colors as input so that the right color is used at the top. Is there a list of standard grape skin colors? As for cluster tightness, I'll see what I can do with what you shared. – VisionHolder « talk » 22:08, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not very good with template/infobox code but I would be all in favor of widening the parameters for skin color. I can't immediately think of any "standard list" since, unfortunately, the wine industry doesn't lend itself too much to global standardization. (The French do their thing, the Germans theirs, etc) The viticulture textbooks I have around go with the the general pink-ruby-purple-blue-black scale but there is so many other color descriptors that can be used as well. I'll poke around and see if there is something more official somewhere (I'll be curious if Tomas knows of any German language links that maybe helpful). AgneCheese/Wine 23:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and made a fairly simple change to {{Infobox grape variety}} that I hope you will like. I have added the optional parameter "color_alt". If defined, it will replace the built-in color name under "Color of berry skin". Therefore, in the case of the Thomcord, you define "color = Noir" and "color_alt = Blue-black". This not only sets the color of the bar at the top, but allows for any color name to displayed for the berry. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Very nifty! Your change is much appreciated. AgneCheese/Wine 00:20, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! Also, anyone who feels comfortable chiming in on a FAC is encouraged to visit the Thomcord FAC. Since this could become the first grape FA, your input is certainly welcome. And btw... do you want the banner on the talk page to only list WP:Food and Drink, or also mention WP:Wine as well? – VisionHolder « talk » 00:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
It is a tremendous article that I'm sure all WP:WINE project members would love to have under the banner, but we tend to consider varieties that are "table grape" only outside the scope. We have Thompson seedless and Concord under the banner because they were historically used as wine grapes (particularly during Prohibition) and even today are dabbled with by some home winemakers. As best as I can tell from the references in the article, Thomcord is designed to pretty much just be a table grape along the lines of Italia (grape) and Swenson Red grape. Again, we would love to have the article (and it would be neat to finally have a FA for the project), it would seem inconsistent to piggy back on your efforts for something that belongs more in the scope WP:FOOD or even WP:PLANTS. Still, we are certainly glad to help with the viticulture questions but that is all in the friendly spirit of collaboration among Wikipedian versus getting gold stars. Thank you for the kind offer though. AgneCheese/Wine 20:41, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
As a side note, I don't know how much of a wine-drinker you are but your wiki-skills will always be welcomed at WP:WINE. :) Even if you just want to limit your interest to ecology topics like grapes, grape diseases and soil-food webs, we have numerous articles that could use some love and attention. We could also use some help starting the Madagascar wine which, like Brazil presents interesting challenges for Tropical viticulture as well as the unique challenges of Lemurs who like to snack on the grapes hanging on the vine. :P Just a thought. AgneCheese/Wine 20:59, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the offer. I usually edit based on my the sources I have at hand. Admittedly, my primary goal at this point is to write all the lemur articles (over 100), as well as the Madagascar national park articles. There are also a few other pet projects I have on the side, such as re-writing Tamarind and a few others. I would be glad to help out when I need a break from the usual grind, and honestly, I see myself staying on Wiki for many, many years to come. You may see a lot more of me yet.  ;-) And thank you for the glowing comments on FAC. I really appreciate both the "support" and all the assistance you've offered. As long as you give me advance notice and can help me get my hands on sources, I will be glad to stop by and assist with small projects from time to time. Best, – VisionHolder « talk » 21:43, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

And just to let everyone know, the article just passed FAC today. Thank you again for the help! I'll be sure to keep in touch. – VisionHolder « talk » 04:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Congrats! AgneCheese/Wine 05:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

South African wine potentially on the main page for Feb 2nd

One of the Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February for Feb 2nd includes Jan van Riebeeck producing the first South African wine. Worth keeping an eye on the watch page for increase traffic. It might also be worth brainstorming if there are any other notable wine dates that might be worth submitting to Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries. AgneCheese/Wine 22:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Yet another Valhalla debate

It will be interesting to see the result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant (2nd nomination). It seems to parallel the donnybrook we had at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valhalla Vineyards last year, which resulted in the article's deletion and subsequent restoration after an equally long deletion review debate, archived at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 January 6. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I !voted delete for Daryl pretty readily, so its even below my Valhalla standards. But the same sort of dispute is going on.--Milowenttalkblp-r 04:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I saw your vote, and pondered it, knowing you supported keeping Valhalla. The arguments in favor of deletion of Daryl are almost exactly the same arguments that were used in Valhalla. The two debates have sufficient parallels that I am inclined to re-nominate Valhalla using Daryl's outcome as a precedent. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Santorini (wine) FYI

I was recently contacted by someone who does PR for the Wines of Santorini about making improvements to that wine article. I directed them to start a discussion on the Talk:Santorini (wine) so that any editors who are interested in keeping the matter transparent and NPOV can participate. Just an FYI for those who don't have the Santorini page on their watchlist. AgneCheese/Wine 22:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. It seems that the PR editor has created an RfA for themselves Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/VinoCC. Obviously a newbie error (and I don't think it's "live") but they also mention that they are on the Austrian Wine Marketing Board and have interest in editing those pages as well. I'm hopefully we can work with them but it probably also worth keeping an eye on the Austrian pages. The edit I revert completely removed ever single reference that was previously in the article and added a lot of POV language. I tried to point to some of the relevant policies but we'll just have to see how they respond. Personally, I would love if they could get some free-use Austria wine-related photos. They will be extremely useful when we start getting to expanding those topics with articles on the sub-regions of Austria, etc. AgneCheese/Wine 23:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge Fruit wine

I would like to propose again that Fruit wine and Non-grape-based wine be merged. The only content not covered in Fruit wine is covered in a single sentence in Non-grape-based wine while much duplication appears throughout. (Note: I believe that I was the original author of Fruit wine, then called Country wine.) The distinction is not simple as fruit wine/country wine typically describes wine made from fruits and from flowers while the Non-grape-based wine article seems less about non-grape as it is titled and more about non-fruit/flower (so about leaves, roots, stalks) And as I expected I just ran across a recipe for wine made from grape leaves. Is that non-grape or fruit? Argh. Rmhermen (talk) 15:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Heh, good point. As the author of the Non-grape-based wine article, I have no objection to the merge. I honestly can't remember why I thought the content should be separate in the first place. (Maybe it was another editor objecting to the Marijuana wine info in the fruit wine article). I don't think it will be controversial merge but it is still probably worthwhile to go ahead and put up the merge suggestion tags and see if anyone objects after a week or so. Then, feel free. AgneCheese/Wine 22:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Raveneau

Hi, does anyone know anything interesting about Domaine Raveneau that could be used for a did you know hook please? Either something with a source, or something I can go find a source for? I've checked all my normal sources and can't find anything out of the ordinary. Camw (talk) 01:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I know that they've been a leading proponent of natural winemaking in Chablis with the use of natural yeasts, etc. There maybe some fruitful material there. I'll poke around and see if there is anything. AgneCheese/Wine 23:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Oooh I think this 2008 Wine Spectator write up has a lot of neat stuff. (If you don't have a subscription I'll send you a pasted copy). Besides being a source for calling Raveneau a "cult winery", there is the note that after Jean-Marie and Bernard's grandfather, Louis, sold all the family's parcels of vineyards, their father, François, had to go around buying them back up. Another story is that the first time notable importer Kermit Lynch tried to contact the Raveneau brothers to import their wine, they hung up on him. AgneCheese/Wine 23:20, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
That sounds perfect, I don't have a subscription, so if you could send me a copy that would be awesome please. Or if you want to add it to the draft that would be okay too. I'll make sure you get co-credit either way. The vineyard fact is slightly at odds with another source I was using, but Wine Spectator will be considered more reliable. Thanks. Camw (talk) 00:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't really conflict. I was being overly brief in summarizing the article above, which also mentions Francois combining his estate with his wife. Regardless, I actually think hanging up on Kermit Lynch is bit more interesting for DYK. Especially if I can devote some time to getting the Lynch article up to snuff. I'll see what I can do. AgneCheese/Wine 00:11, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Agree, I really like the Kermit Lynch fact. Camw (talk) 00:15, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Email sent. AgneCheese/Wine 00:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, that's great. Hopefully I can reciprocate with some of my Australian wine sources if needed in a few months! Camw (talk) 00:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure you will :) Also, if you don't have it bookmark yet www.ablegrape.com can be useful. It's essentially Google for wine topics. AgneCheese/Wine 00:20, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again Agne, I've incorporated some good content from the article and submitted the Lynch hook to DYK today. Camw (talk) 03:55, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Where is Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Wine?

With the new tabs and front page is there a transclusion of the articles for deletion/prod anywhere or am I just missing it? I needed to list an AfD today and had to go through a bit to try and find this link. AgneCheese/Wine 23:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

New article - Hagafen Cellars

Hello, I've written a new article on Hagafen Cellars, and would appreciate feedback, since it is my first winery article. Thank you. Cullen328 (talk) 00:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Really nice work! I especially appreciate your diligent referencing and NPOV tone. There is not really a set MOS for the order of different section headings, and you'll find many scattered examples on the project, so take the next suggestion for what it is worth. Roughly speaking, the winery articles written by Wine Project members tend to follow a History, Production (Vineyards, Winery, Wines, etc) Misc (notable events, people, etc) format. Château Cos d'Estournel, Chateau Grand Traverse, Burrowing Owl Estate, Tablas Creek Vineyard and Guigal are some examples. If you're interested, the WP:WINEGUIDE and WP:WINERY is a collection of general views on wine articles and winery notability in particular but I really don't see any problem with Hagafen Cellars. Great work. AgneCheese/Wine 03:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Olive Garden

I was sourcing and citing out the Olive Garden article and found an interesting fact about it and its parent company Darden Restaurants. For several years now the two have been one of the largest wine importers in North America. Additionally, its training facility, the Culinary institute of Tuscany, is located on the grounds of a very large winery in the Tuscan wine country called Rocca delle Macie. The winery is one of the largest Chianti vintners in the region.

Currently there is no article on that winery and this would fit in wonderfully with the March WID! --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 02:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, that is interesting. Wonder what kind of sources are available for Rocca delle Macie? AgneCheese/Wine 02:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I gots this one:
  • ref name="NRN-Prewitt" Prewitt, Milford (1 November 1999). "Olive Garden plants roots in Tuscany, opens culinary school". Nation's Restaurant News. p. 1. Retrieved 4 March 2011. /ref
--Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 02:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I have been looking at the winery and found some information on it:

  • Company website
  • Vino 2011 Wine week:
    • Founded 1973 by Italo Zingarelli, operated by his son Sergio since 1985
    • 600 Hectares of land, 200 dedicated to the vineyard and 60 to olive growing
    • DOCG Wines:
      • Chianti Classico: Riserva - "Famiglia Zingarelli" 2007
      • Morellino di Scansano: - "Campomaccione" 2008
    • IGT Wines:
      • Maremma Toscana: - "Occhio al Vento" 2009
      • Toscano or Toscana: - "Ser Gioveto" 2006
      • Toscano or Toscana: - "Sasyr" 2008

From what I can gather, they are a pretty big producer in the region and are growing at a good clip. They have purchased several other properties in the region for expansion. Most of the sources I have encountered are travel blogs (the winery has an extensive tour program), reviews of their wines, listing of their products available through various import houses and that's about it. Mayhaps you wine guys can dig up more? --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 20:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

country level articles

I just updated the List of wine-producing countries to the most recently available data (2008) and notice that three of the top-25 producing countries do not have country-level articles (or I mislinked them): Moldova, Macedonia and Uruguay. Anyone know about the wine industry in these countries? Rmhermen (talk) 17:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Moldovan wine exists.
For Uruguay, we have Culture of Uruguay#wine, which wouldn't qualify. List of wine-producing regions#Uruguay says that Canelones, Uruguay is the primary wine producing region there, although the Canelones article says nothing about wine. I don't see anything else significant about wine and Uruguay.
Macedonia is another tough one. We have Tikveš#Wine Growing, and Povardarie, both listed in List of wine-producing regions#Macedonia. Other than that, I don't see anything. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I fixed the mislink to Moldavan wine so only two left. Rmhermen (talk) 17:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Just to prove that I haven't gone completely inactive (did I hear a "darn!" somewhere? :-) ), I created Uruguayan wine and Macedonian wine. Considering the Macedonia naming dispute, I'd appreciate if a couple of people would put the latter article on their watchlist, because I haven't really been actively patrolling for several months, and I probably won't in the near future either. Since there is wine produced in the Greek region of Macedonia and since there was wine produced in Ancient Macedonia, I'm sure this article will be involved in controversy or POV-pushing sooner or later. I added a hatnote for wines of the Greek region of Macedonia for clarity, but I'd really like to avoid a more cumbersome name of the article itself since it can't see that it really is needed for disambiguation purposes. Tomas e (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

No longer a micro-stub

As I promised, I've begun to expand the Italian winery Falesco, which is no longer what Agne called a "micro-stub". I'll keep looking for solid information to add. Cullen328 (talk) 23:24, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

That you did and a incredible job too boot. I will gladly concede that I was wrong and I really appreciate your work on this article. :) AgneCheese/Wine 06:06, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:Wine main page

Hello all, I tweaked the main page of the project a little. The page tabs template was causing the main section to push the side panel off the screen. I also added the toolserver box at the bottom, there are a lot of great tools that let you identify new article, references and other cool stuff. --Jeremy (blah blahI did it!) 22:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Thatcrazyfrenchwoman.com

I'd appreciate the benefit of this project's (particularly Agne's) greater expertise.

Refer to User talk:Amatulic#Thatcrazyfrenchwoman.com but please reply here (although feel free to reply on my talk page if you want).

This concerns links for http://www.thatcrazyfrenchwoman.com, which I removed from sustainable agriculture, biodynamic wine, natural wine, and organic wine because the anonymous IP contributor's history suggested a pattern of spamming and conflict of interest. While the site is clearly a self-published source, it may qualify as a WP:RS if the author is indeed the expert claimed. Thanks. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

While we certainly want to avoid biting a newbie and prospective expert wine editor, admittedly the promotional appearance of the edits is off-putting. The best choice of action would be for the editor to utilize the article's talk page with proposed edits and allow a third party editor to review and see if it is appropriate to use. About the site itself, it reminds me a lot of Gary Vaynerchuk's stuff which we hardly ever use as a reliable source because there is usually something better that can be used. After flipping through some of the paragraph sections under the "Natural Wine" tab, I'm really not seeing any truly unique information that we can't get from other obviously reliable sources. Decanter, Wine Spectator and Jancis Robinson have numerous articles on natural and organic winemaking which can be used to improve those articles. There is also Patrick Matthew's "Real Wine: The Rediscovery of Natural Winemaking" and Alice Feiring's "The Battle for Wine and Love" book references. And also, if we wanted to utilize a blog RS (which is really what Thatcrazyfrenchwoman.com is) we could find much more useful info on Natural wine from Feiring's blog. AgneCheese/Wine 19:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Agne, have you heard of the blog's author? I ask because I thought you were pursuing a Master of Wine, and she is claimed to be (on my talk page) the world's only French female with MW credential.
I agree, though, there are adequate non-blog links that can be used in those articles. I started this thread because I wanted to know if linking to thatcrazyfrenchwoman in the external links section of articles is appropriate. I removed those links on behavioral grounds without having any background knowledge of the site. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Doubt this is a suitable external link even if it qualifies as a reliable source (a quick look at the MW Profile suggests it probably qualifies). WP:ELNO suggests avoiding linking "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article". It may be able to be used as a reference in appropriate circumstances. Camw (talk) 22:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I vaguely remember seeing her name in an email from the IMW mailing list when she got her MW but that is the extent of my familiarity. Being an MW, she probably does qualify for an article but I don't think it means that her website is a de facto reliable source. As for its use as an external link, I generally take a very dim view on the usefulness of ELs anyway and I err on avoiding them unless they have some incredibly useful and unique information. I just don't see that from this website. AgneCheese/Wine 23:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

We survived February-French wines!

New month and new WP:WID2011 theme-Italian wines. February was a bit of a bear and it seemed that we caught quite a few Wine Project members traveling, busy off-wiki or busy on-wiki so we weren't quite as successful this month as we were with January's kick off. I also suspect that there is something about the massive topic of French wines itself that makes it such a difficult arena to tackle. If I recall, it was a French wine-theme topic that killed off the last WP:WID project. Any suggestions for perhaps next years WID? I don't know if it was the short month (I choose February simply because the month began with an F for some vague association, like the Ides of March for Italian wine, etc) or time of year or perhaps maybe the topic of French wines is simply too big for a month?
Maybe it is also the fact that a lot of the low hanging fruit of French wine topics have mostly been picked and it is more difficult to get jazzed up to rewrite and fully reference an article like Appellation d'origine contrôlée. Perhaps, on that thought, we will have more luck with Italian wines where there is a fair amount of low hanging fruit on User:Agne27/Wine Improvement Drive 2011/Italian wines such as regional wine articles on the wines of Sicily, DOC articles on Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone, Langhe DOC and Salice Salentino DOC, stub kills for such notable wines as Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Soave (wine), Gattinara DOCG and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (the last few technically listed as start but are so small for such notable topics that they might as well be stubs). Plenty of fodder to keep us busy and hopefully enough to meet our 5-5-5 goal. AgneCheese/Wine 23:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't been active this month for this. I've not found the site a fun place to be and I've tried to start a few articles but I just can't get into it. I'll try to make it up next month, although I am away on holiday overseas for a decent portion of it. Camw (talk) 22:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

copyright images on commons

There are an enormous number of images of wine bottles at Commons that foreground copyrighted packaging in clear violation of commons rules. I will soon be requesting that they be deleted, and I can't imagine any reason why my request would not be approved. I would hate, however, for all these images to be lost. They could easily be uploaded to wikipedia under fair use. Is there anyone here that would like to move them, with that purpose, before they get deleted? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 23:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

You may want to review the previous discussion on Commons regarding wine labels where Wikimedia Foundation attorney Mike Godwin said that they were acceptable to keep. AgneCheese/Wine 00:09, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion requests at Commons

FYI, despite Quill's previous deletion request above failing to garner consensus, the editor has put up a couple of images still for deletion including commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:A 4 Litre Cask of Australian White Wine.jpg, speeding tags on File:Guenoc Chardonnay.jpg, File:Spring Mountain 1982 Falcon Crest Chardonnay.jpg, File:Jack's Legacy port style wine.jpg and a couple other speedies that have already gone through. AgneCheese/Wine 20:07, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Couple more that were uploaded by (Murghs) File:Soffoconelabel.jpg and File:Casamattas.jpg. I've asked that he refrain from placing speedy tags on wine labels until the previous AfD he created for the Australian box wine was concluded to see if there is consensus to disregard the Foundation's lawyer opinion on wine labels or at the very least AfD them rather than speedy. I know of at least 3 images that have already vanished. That said, I've removed the speedied tags from the Guenoc Chardonnay and the Jack's port style wine since those images also feature the wine in the glass and are of higher importance to protect. AgneCheese/Wine 20:18, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Update I went ahead and removed the speedies from all the wine related images I could find that TheMightyQuill put up but again, some have already been lost. AgneCheese/Wine 20:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

New round of deletions

Well at least TheMightyQuill put them on AfD instead of speedy. He has listed several wine images including

Now commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:A 4 Litre Cask of Australian White Wine.jpg is still running and I'm not sure what to make of Quill's pattern after commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Wine labels and commons:Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/03/Category:Canned beverages. He seems that he wants to try to get consensus to delete some wine images but he is being rather indiscriminate in what he is selecting. Some of these images focus solely on the wine label, like the Bellet, while others, such as the Guenoc, Jack's and Trader's Joe also include the wine as an important feature. AgneCheese/Wine 07:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, another Commons user has placed several more wine images up for AfD including
But poking around deletion request, I also found an interesting argument and court case reference for a recent deletion attempt on Chateau Latour label on Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2011_February_22#File:ChateauLatour03.jpg. AgneCheese/Wine 08:13, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Some general thoughts

Given the rash of deletion requests, I do think that we, as a project, should have a serious discussion about wine images and perhaps draft a project-level guideline. The above FYI notes are not a canvass invitation to blindly vote keep to save the images just for the sake of saving them because some probably shouldn't be housed on Commons in the first place. (I, myself, have only commented on a few and while I won't vote delete on the others, I think there is a stronger case for keeping some images more than others). But we can't ignore the issue whether it is a mass deletion or blissful ambivalence as the images linger for years (many never ever being used in an actual article). My personal opinion is that images which feature the wine, itself, in addition to the bottle are the most useful and given the 2000 9th circuit court decision on Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits, Inc that is referenced in the Chateau Latour discussion above, I think there is a strong case to retain those kind of images on Commons. Plus, having the wine in the images also offers more encyclopedic value as an illustration when paired with a bottle that identifies the variety and origins of the wine. Any thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 08:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I basically agree with you. And I voted "delete" on one of my own, the Gewurz SGN 1989, because after having tried to study the rules a little closer, I can't really motivate keeping a picture of an artist label without any wine glass in the frame. Tomas e (talk) 19:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)