Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Food and drink/Wines task force/Archive 8

New conversion template unit

I nearly missed it, but the nice User:Jimp has implemented a unit with high wino-relevance to Template:Convert, with new unit winecase ready for translation into any applicable units, it displays case (no abbreviation) linking to Case (goods) & conversion is to litres by default. So, testrunning: I'd like 72 cases (0.65 m³) (expressed: {{convert|72|winecase|m3}} or: 12,500-case (112,500.000 L; 29,719.356 US gal) production (expressed: {{convert|12500|winecase|l USgal|3|lk=on|adj=on}}.. although not with hL in triple conversion it seems to work, subject to verification :^) MURGH ^disc. 05:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Jimp has also opened up triples with a host of possibilities. Ex: 1,750 cases (157.500 hL; 4,160.710 U.S. gal). MURGH ^disc. 21:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Jimp has edited the post above to change the depreciated cum to m3. JIMp _talk·cont 00:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Cabernet Sauvignon now GA

As was noted here some time ago, Agne's expansion and overhaul made the Cabernet Sauvignon quite an impressive article, so I went along and nominated it for GA status yesterday. Despite the ominous warnings on the heavy backlog of the nomination page, it only took a few hours for it to be passed! Since Cab is rated Top level for importance, this actually meant a 33% increase in the number of "upper left corner" articles, i.e. Top/GA, although this fact hasn't been picked-up in the assessment log yet. I think this calls for a toast - excellent work (again) by Agne! Tomas e (talk) 22:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Cheers! MURGH ^disc. 22:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow...that was quick. Thanks :) Admittedly I've been slacking in my work on the other Top importance article. "Off Wiki" Life slapped me upside the head with my car getting stolen :{ Been going through the motions dealing with police reports/insurance and shopping for a new car. It is nice to get a little good news after all the headaches. Thanks for the nom. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Congrats, Agne :) I'll drink to that this evening!!! --BodegasAmbite (talk) 09:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting article about tasting wine

Courtesy of the ebob board Check out this Washington Post article and the "budometer" test. I'm wondering if there is any material here that maybe worthwhile for our wine tasting article. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 22:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Shiraz or Syrah, that is the question

I have now entered my request that Shiraz (grape) be moved to Syrah, and you can add your opinion here. Tomas e (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Old World Cabernet Franc

Looks like April's Wine Blogging Wednesday will be Old World Cabernet Franc. No date has been announced yet. In preparation we'd obviously want to polish up the Cabernet Franc article but some Loire wine regions like Chinon, Saumur and Bourgueil (which doesn't have a wine sub article yet) are other candidates to work on. Any other "Old World" regions that have significant Cab Franc plantings that we may want to take a look at? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 05:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Are there perhaps any Right Bank Bordeaux wines with an unusually high proportion of Cab Franc, i.e., more of this variety than Merlot? I suppose it might be an idea to check up if Cab Franc's role in Bordeaux is adequately described in the Bordeaux-related articles. But I'm not sure if I volunteer, because I never expect greatness from Cabernet Franc. Tomas e (talk) 11:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm no help with region though Château Cheval Blanc ought to be counted as a nice marriage of CF and Merlot (a pro pos above alluded lovable character). Le Dôme of Teyssier is the most CF dominant Bdx I've seen around but.. never tasted. MURGH ^disc. 02:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, i just looked at the Château Teyssier article. Nicely done. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Wine GA candidate currently on hold for improvments

I've placed Beaujolais wine on hold for some necessary improvements during it's GA nomination. The requested changes are relatively minor; please feel free to pitch in. Thanks, VanTucky 21:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Ach, I've a ton of photos of the Beaujolais vineyards at harvest time which I still haven't got round to sorting out, plus some nice ones of Duboeuf bottles - another one for the todo list, I'm still deep in the Italy stuff at the moment. But I did notice that someone was actually questioning the notability of André Simon (wine writer) - so I've done a bit of a job on him. It's not exactly a FA, but it's at the stage where with some more eyeballs on it (and a photo - there's probably a better chance of finding one via US copyright than UK, hint :-)) ) it might be a GA candidate. Might even be worth splitting out dedicated articles on the IWFS (I sense it's a bigger deal Stateside than here?) and the book awards, if anyone feels keen. Oh and some little things - I've added Satyr's short "todo" list to the right panel of the project page, and Agne, could you sign your deliveries of the Newsletter - it breaks my archiving otherwise? Not a biggy, but it would be one less thing to worry about, even if you use <small> tags. Oh and I had a little go at sorting out Wine label - I lost the worst of the weasel words, but it almost needs a full rewrite to clean it up and properly globalise it. FlagSteward (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello VanTucky, could you elaborate on why you failed the article less than one day (20:49 to be more precise) after putting a note here encouraging people to pitch in? While I notice that you and Agne (who has contributed most of the article's contents in its present shape) didn't agree on some points, there are quite a lot of other editors around. Given that some of us work once in a while, we're located in different time zones and so on, less than one day seems way too short. Tomas e (talk) 11:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll take some of that blame Tomas. Once it became clear that VanTucky and I were at a standstill in our views, I told him if he couldn't pass it in good conscious then that is okay. But I agree, especially since I wasn't even the nominator, that I was being too forward and should have recommended more time for other editors to get involved. However, there is still a Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Beaujolais wine/1 going on and any editor that wishes to participate is free to. For myself, I'm going to take a backseat for this (and probably future GA nominations) and focus more on content creation. My off wiki work life is really hitting overdrive with expanding and remodeling the shop so I'm having to prioritize more. Please feel free to respond to the GA review anyway that you see fit. I won't step on anyone toes. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability tags

The Notability Project has been identifying articles with notability queries - André Simon was the only European one covered by this Project (Agne - if you want a DYK, the Simon quote about not leaving wine in your cellar might work?), the remainder are all Californian wineries/vineyards, so I'm happy to hand them over to the other side of the pond : :-) Bien Nacido Vineyards, Shenandoah Vineyards, Firestone Vineyard, Hatcher Winery, Meteor Vineyard. I've certainly had Firestone wines in the UK, and Bien Nacido is definitely notable, but I'll admit that I've never come across the others. Meteor has a COI flag, and Shenandoah was started by a KSobon so probably deserves one too BTW. FlagSteward (talk) 19:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Already nominated and yes, that quote jumped out. :) Great work on that article. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Update I've removed the tag on Bien Nacido, the abundance of reliable sources already in that article should be a surefire indicator of notability. I agree that Firestone is notable but it is currently written like an ad and would need a lot of work. The others are more "iffy". Though I will freely admit that I'm a bit more strict in notability assessment of wineries than others might be. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Wine being just about anything with alcohol?

Not every editor of Wikipedia seems to bother to read even the first sentence of the wine article before expressing their views on what the definition of wine is. Take part in Talk:Chinese wine if you have any views on whether to keep this common mistranslation for a random collection of fermented and distilled beverages. Tomas e (talk) 20:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wine Collector 200

I tagged this article with your project. APK ^{yada yada} 16:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Languedoc or Languedoc-Roussillon ?

The article Languedoc wine is in fact an article on the entire Languedoc-Roussillon wine region, and no other enwiki article covers this region, which BTW is the largest in France in terms of vineyard surface. Therefore, the need for a name correction seems obvious to me, but since it is a GA and therefore has gone through some kind of review I have proposed a name change at Talk:Languedoc wine rather than just changing it. Tomas e (talk) 20:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

CellarTracker

Surprised there wasn't an article on this awesomely popular site already, so I made one. Woot. - Merzbow (talk) 08:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Considering that we miss articles on entire regions in the biggest wine-producing countries, Corsica wine comes to mind, and that more than 50% of our articles are stubs, often without sources, I'm not that surprised... Sensmorale: good work and there's still a lot of things to do and add! Tomas e (talk) 17:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay...okay. :p I finally broke down and started the Corsica wine article. :) Agne^Cheese/^Wine 05:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this area of Wikipedia definitely needs to be given more attention. I'll do what I can. - Merzbow (talk) 17:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 1.0

Found this link that is quite interesting. Suprising that e.g. French wine would not make it, but it is B class now so should pass the limit I think. According to the list we have 34 TOP class articles, 21 would make it and the more important of the failuers are already upgraded from start to B since lat the bot ran so they should probably be included next time. --Stefan ^talk 14:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually French wine is still Start-class within this project, although Wikipedia:WikiProject France classifies it as B. I think it needs significantly more referencing, some additions to e.g. the history section and perhaps some copyediting before I'd feel comfortable classifying it B. In general, it seems that writing good country articles have been slower and more difficult than writing good articles on individual notable regions and grape varieties. Also, French wine is perhaps the second-most wide-ranging subject after the big article wine itself. Tomas e (talk) 16:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What does Moldova have which makes France, Spain, Italy and so on envious?

Well, apparently the country's wines has its entirely own Wikipedia project on enwiki. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject MoldovanWines if you want to be slightly astonished. You may recognize a few features on the page, so to speak. I stumbled across it when I was checking out a large number of Moldovan winery stubs which had been tagged for our project, apparently added by User:Serhio. My problem with them was that all but one of them contained no information whatsoever to establish any notability, so I wanted to give him a hint that much more solid articles than his have been marked WP:AfD over time. I have no idea what to do about the whole thing, but someone else may want to check into it. Tomas e (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Also check out Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion regarding Template:Moldova-wine-stub. Tomas e (talk) 20:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ummmmmm....I appreciate the enthusiasm but I think the Moldovan project is a bit of an overkill. It definitely falls within the "too small" scope of the Wikiproject guideline. I would encourage Serhio to focus on improving Moldovan wine articles within the WP:WINE umbrella. There is simply no benefit to this existing as its own project. Agne^Cheese/^Wine

Agree; perhaps Serhio can be convinced to make his project a Wikipedia:TASKFORCE within the Wine project instead. - Merzbow (talk) 04:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I had the same thoughts; it would probably fit better as a taskforce rather than as a project, provided he'll able to recruit some additional people. Both the guidelines and the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals seem to exist to assist people in making suitable choices. Tomas e (talk) 12:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wine photos

Hey, browsing Flickr I recently came upon some neat photos of a grape harvest in california. Do we need these, or are there a lot of photos like these already? VanTucky 23:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

They defintely look good! I don't think we have an overabundance of free images related to the wine production process (as opposed to photos of wine bottles or barrels), and especially not long sequences of photos. If you upload them, could you please put them on Commons rather than enwiki? It's practical to have all images in one place! Off and on I try to keep commons:Category:Wine and some of its subcategories in some semblance of order. Perhaps you could make a page of them, or create a special subcategory somewhere? If the grape variety/varieties could be identified, and not just the winery, that would be even better! Tomas e (talk) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Another milestone

I just noticed that with the last update of the assessment log, we're now above 2,000 articles - at 2,015 to be more precise. That must be seen as a milestone of sorts! However, since many of the recent additions were winery stubs, the number of stubs is now 1,045, after having long hovered around or just above 1,000, which is 52% of the total number of article. I've never seen the proportion of stubs go below 50%, but that is a future milestone which I wouldn't mind seeing. On and off, I've been biting into a few mid/stub articles and expanded them into mid/start, but there are still 235 left in that category... Tomas e (talk) 12:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Advice on naming a category

Off and on I've encountered articles on a couple of beverages made from a wine base and realised that there seems to exist no category for them. This has led to some of them being put into inappropriate wine categories. (Wine + something else = no longer wine.) But Category:Alcoholic beverages seems to broad to put everything of this flacour into, its subcategory Category:Premixed and RTD alcoholic beverages probably more refers to Gin & tonic in a can, and Category:Cocktails with wine, sparkling wine, or port refers to things mixed in the glass or in a shaker rather than arriving in a mixed state.
Adding a category and knowing how to categorise it is not my problem, but I'm not quite sure what to actually call this category. Some thoughts could be:

• Mixed beverages made from wine
• Mixed beverages including wine
• Beverages produced from a wine base
• ...?

Two articles I would want to put into this category are wine cooler and Buckfast Tonic Wine, if it helps the inspiration. Also, not everything now found in Category:Fortified wine is really what I would call fortified wine. I also remember the bum wine discussion some time ago. Perhaps some of those articles could also fit inside such a catgeory. Tomas e (talk) 08:21, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe Category:Wine-based beverages? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

A few existing categories that may be useful are : Category:Cocktails with vermouth, Category:Cocktails with wine, sparkling wine, or port, Category:Fruit wines, Category:Vermouth, Category:Wine cocktails I personally wouldn't get too hung up on the distinction as to whether something is made at home or comes prepackaged - by the time it's in your glass it's all the same stuff - and for instance would you particularly want to distinguish wine that can be bought en vrac and in bottle from the same place? OR home-made bread from bakery bread? There's a horrible EU phrase, "Aromatised wine" which covers stuff like pre-packed sangria, which might be appropriate, but I'd have thought that the existing cats probably cover things pretty well. For instance, I suspect that Buckie is technically a vermouth (although I'm not quite sure what goes into it - possibly it's a premixed wine cocktail, but you could also view it as a Category:Patent medicines or a 19th century Category:Alcopop - I've gone with the last two for now), and I don't see what's wrong with sticking wine cooler in the Wine cocktails category. Must admit though, I feel that this kind of stuff is really best covered by sister Projects such as WP:MIX, and a few that fall through the gaps like Buckie probably belong in our parent project Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink. We've got our hands full as it is just coping with the mouldy grape juice articles - adding sugar and brandy counts as wine, but anything more takes it out of our remit IMO. Sorting out the whole fortified wine thing was one of the more pressing things on my todo list - I'm still a bit tied up with the Italy Project at the moment, but the end is on sight on that front.... FlagSteward (talk) 14:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't misunderstand me - I don't plan to spend much time to cover these mixtures, I just wanted a suitable place to "pour them out" when I find them in "real" wine categories. Tomas e (talk) 17:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Some awesome praise for Wikipedia's wine articles

From the Business Standard "The Internet is a pretty good place to start — just Google the subject and there's a wealth of information available. Wikipedia has some of the most authoritative articles..." Great work everyone. :) It is good to know that this stuff is being found useful. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

One more interesting link. At least they're offering their Wikipedia Wine Book for free. :) Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Upcoming Wine Blogging Wednesday

Will be White Rhones. So who is up for some work on Condrieu AOC, Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier, Bourboulenc, Château-Grillet AOC, Saint-Péray AOC Clairette Blanc, Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains, Picardin, Picpoul,Ugni Blanc and others? :) Agne^Cheese/^Wine 05:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, considering I'm blasted on some mind-blowing Turley Zin right now, I'm going to go make an article on Turley Wine Cellars... this will be an interesting test that should measure how the ability to write articles degrades (improves?) along with the consumption of alcohol. (Anyways, sorry for hijacking your thread... you're right most of those articles need work, primarily along the lines of improved referencing.) - Merzbow (talk) 05:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Off topic but related While working on the White Rhones article, I was surprised that Marsanne went to a disambig page when the grape is pretty clearly the primary topic. I put in a move request at Talk:Marsanne (grape). Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well Marsanne has been taking care of. I was thinking of requesting Grenache Blanc to be moved to the lower case "blanc" but in light of the conversation about caps, I'm not sure if this would "uncontroversial" or not. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I didn't follow up the thread above, but I think it's possible to make a case for both Grenache Blanc (which would be my OCW-following preference) or Grenache blanc (which I suppose is the French way). Tomas e (talk) 11:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Micro-winery

Would an expert please look at the article micro-winery. It looks like a neologism to me, or a topic that could be merged with winery. Thanks --Thetrick (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Or indeed with Négociant, in a way - I'd support merging it into both of those.FlagSteward (talk) 13:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I like Flag's idea of merging it with Négociant. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I had never heard the term before, and it uses a very strange comparison to microbreweries. Have you seen many large-scale industrial breweries situated on the edge of a piece of farmland they use to grow their raw material? I'm not convinced of the encyclopedic value of the information included. Tomas e (talk) 11:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Wine geeks give advice on where Wikipedia can improve its wine coverage

Keep an eye on the developments of this thread for areas that wine geeks think needs more coverage on Wikipedia. (And yes, I'm going back to finish the Corsica wine article :p) Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Capitalized grape names or not

One of the "Vayniacs" of the thread asked this: "One little thing, why does the Wikipedia use inconsistent capitalizing? It should either be pinot gris or Pinot Gris, but not Pinot gris. The Pinot Blanc article is internally inconsistent in capitalization." I'm not sure I agree that Pinot gris is an impossible form, but I have also noted that our articles are inconsistent.

On this matter, Oxford Companion to Wine in the article "Vine varieties" on p. 745 (2006 Ed) explain their own policy in this way: "Not least because this is what usually appears on wine labels, this book uses the convention of adopting a capital letter for each word in a vine variety’s name, even though ‘Pinot noir’ may be botanically more correct than ‘Pinot Noir’."

Do we need a project guideline for this? And if so, can we just adopt OCW's position on the matter? Or is this case somehow similar to the BrE and AmE matter where editors can choose but internal consistency is recommended? Tomas e (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Somewhere there is a discussion from around 15 months ago that basically came to consensus that grapes are generally capitalize, unless the the second name is color related. So Cabernet Sauvignon is all caps but only the first word of Pinot gris or Pinot noir is. I'll have to poke around in the archives to see where it is. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

hmm, apparently the conversation took place off the project page. I'll have to try and remember where. I did find the post that started the discussion. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:List_of_grape_varieties. Agne remebers correctly. (We should allow google to search talk pages ...) --Stefan ^talk 00:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for returning to the subject after several weeks (but the 'bot hadn't removed the thread yet...) My reading of that 2005 discussion (which could either be read as referring to that specific list or to grape names in general) was that it was not very conclusive. One user referred to previous industry experience (in the US presumably) for a mixed capitalization/non-capitalization approach, but did not provide any published source for reference. Noone voiced support or opposition. So I wouldn't really see that as a guideline. Tomas e (talk) 09:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Wine producer vs. Wine company vs. Winery

From looking at the categories Category:Wine producers, Category:Wine companies, Category:Wineries I am unclear on what is the difference between them - all wineries are wine producers, some wine companies own multiple wineries, some wineries are are set up as companies, etc. Is there a way to either consolidate the categories or explain their differences? Arguably wine producers could contain the other two Thanks --Thetrick (talk) 13:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Wine companies go way beyond mere producers - there are many companies which are identified as "wine companies" that are principally distributors of other people's wine. Winery primarily refers to the physical site of production, but has come to mean a company producing at one site. It is very much a New World term. Given the amount of wine production in English speaking Europe and Asia, one might argue that it's not much of a WP:CSB problem, but USians should be aware that it isn't a universal term. Wine producer is pretty self-explanatory. So a winery category is perhaps redundant with wine producer, but that's as far as I'd go.FlagSteward (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Dumb phase: neologism or wine term?

I was thinking of creating an article on the term "dumb phase" but was surprise when I couldn't find any authoritative reliable sources, outside of blogs which really aren't that great. I could possibly put together a piecemeal article but it might be at risk of being AfD as a neologism (even though it really isn't new). Do you think its worth trying to make an article or should we just make an entry at Glossary of wine terms and leave it there? My main concern about the later is that eventually someone is going to come around to these glossary articles and either start demanding sources for these types of articles or AfDing them because "Wikipedia is not a dictionary, glossary or something". I'd rather not leave semi/important wine terms only existing on those kind of pages. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 21:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

My gut feel is that it shouldn't be a standalone article. At the very least it's got WP:CSB issues, this side of the pond we'd talk about a wine being "closed". I'd suggest a broader article on "wine maturation" or something similar, which would allow you to talk about more tangible things like the polymerisation of tannin molecules and the like, rather than a purely subjective, sensory "experience". You could also incorporate otherwise stubby definition articles such as Bottle-shock, and talk a bit about barrels and what not as well. FlagSteward (talk) 23:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm often going through dumb phases myself, but I would more commonly call a wine "closed". Could it perhaps go into wine tasting? Tomas e (talk) 11:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Maryland wine

Boy this article needs some major work. Unfortunately I don't have any sources on Maryland wine to improve it with references and content. But at the very least it needs some major POV and wiki clean up. Any thoughts? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Update I did some clean up but looking at the article's history, its been pretty heavily editing recently by some SPA who are at the very least wiki newbies. While I don't think there is any ill intent, I would appreciate the help of any extra set of eyes to keep the article in reasonable shape if these SPA edit again. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:33, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Any need for guidelines for wine articles?

Given the discussion about capitalization for grape names, do we see any need for a page with practical guidelines for writing wine articles, other than Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a wine guide, which really handles some of the "big issues" for wine in Wikipedia? I'm not saying it would have to be very long or authorative, but some of the things leading to discussions on talk pages might be practical to have in one place. Some initial thoughts on the types of things to cover:

• Grape variety articles in general cover both material on the vine & grape, and varietal wines.
• While varieties would be cultivars to a botanist, "variety" is the only term in widespread use within viticulture.
• When a variety is known under several synonyms, we prefer one article with redirects from the synonyms.
• Grape names are written as...
• Do not confuse the terms variety and varietal.
• Terminology for grape colours vary, so be aware that "red grape" can be ambiguous.
• (In an ideal world) Guides for terminology regarding geographical areas and origins (e.g. "region is generally bigger than district" and "don't call an individual AOC a region").
• Different usage of units in different countries. It's preferable to give sizes of vineyards and regions both as ha and acres using the convert function.
• List of good information sources - written and online.

Any thoughts? Useful/needed or not? Tomas e (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think it is a very good idea, we did a try for grape article template but nothing much happened after that. I think it is very good way for a project to standardize content and a good help when writing new articles. --Stefan ^talk 01:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Must admit that I hadn't seen that article... Tomas e (talk) 18:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not well published and was done before you joined. --Stefan ^talk 14:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice link

Found a nice tool for category intersect, so that you can find e.g. All wine articles lacking sources, see [1]. --Stefan ^talk 14:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink

I notice that all wine-related articles have been blitz-tagged with a Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink template on their talk pages. My first observation is that for talk pages already tagged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine, this new template should go below that template, since the wine project is more relevant; however, it is being added above it. My second observation is to question whether or not this template is even desired. Is not the wine project more relevant? Is there something in WikiProject guidelines that addresses this issue? I see it as counterproductive to have two WikiProject templates on an article talk page, both with different assessment ratings. But this seems to be common practice, I guess; however, I do strongly think these pages should be adjusted so that the wine project template is on top. - Merzbow (talk) 07:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Banner discussion

Greetings people of WP:WINE! There's a discussion about the new changes to the WP:FOOD banner starting up at the Beer WikiProject that you might be interested in. – ClockworkSoul 23:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Standardizing french (all?) wine appellations

Looking on the condrieu article, it has a nice table on the right that gives a lot of quick information. I suggest we use that format for all appellations. I also suppose we should try and formulate a GA-tempelate for the appellations, so they become 1. easier to read and 2. easier to write (having a plan on what to look for, how to write it and the amount of information on each section would make things a lot easier) after all, there's hundreds and hundreds of appellations that all should have an article.--Nwinther (talk) 16:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to use infoboxes for AOCs. While I think the Condrieu infobox contains a lot of interesting information, I'm not too happy with the exact terminology of it so I would not like to elevate it to an AOC standard as it stands. A single appellation is not a "wine region" in my mind, stating an appellation d'origine contrôlée, AOC (the appellation) to be (just?) a type of appellation looks strange to me, Gneiss is a soil type rather than "soil condition", "No of vineyards" is a bit ambiguous - does it refer to named lieux dits within the appellation or the number of vineyard owners, an AOC for wine does not really "produce grapes", but certain grape varieties are allowed within it. AND... this infobox is in fact made with our existing Template:Infobox Wine Region, so I'm surprised at the number of complaints I give! I must say that it is very much more made for regions (and New World conditions?) than individual AOCs. If you'd like to craft a template better suited to individual AOCs I'd be happy to provide constructive comments. Tomas e (talk) 20:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll add another - the colors on the top of the box are not good. Somehow they are making the name of the region appear very blurry (at least on my laptop's screen) When I first saw it, I thought it was a poorly scanned newspaper clipping. Rmhermen (talk) 03:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Right now, I generally avoid using infobox on wine regions till we get around to doing some of the standardization/vetting that is being mentioned. (I think things have been settled on the grape variety infobox with no major problems) In regards to the Condrieu article, I pretty much left the Infobox as I found it but I agree with Tomas that some of the terminology could use some work. As for an article template, that has been proposed many time before and it is a great idea. It just not one that anyone has worked up a great deal of motivation to carry out. While it is on my long list of To-Dos, I would welcome the efforts of anyone to craft something and would be glad to share my thoughts. I have sort of developed my own personal style with articles like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Spanish wine, Loire Valley wine, etc that include some degree of flexibility rather than a rigid outline. But it is certainly not perfect and I would be interested in hearing other project members thoughts on what should be included in an "ideal article". Agne^Cheese/^Wine 07:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Alternate banner

Hello,

I have recently modified the {{WPFOOD}} banner so that it supports this project. I did this to unite all the food related projects under a uniform banner as well as cut down on the number of banners that appear at the top of each article talk page. It also allows for a streamlined assessment process where we can help assess articles across the scope of the related WP Food and Drink projects.

Just add the |Wine=yes switch to any {{WikiProject Food and drink}} tag at the top of the article talk page and you will get this:

Standard banner -

As you can see, this project is prominently displayed in the banner, and I can add any custom text you would like.

With nesting function -

currently there is an issue with it not displaying the second name in the nested function.

If there is any questions, please post them not on my page but on the WPFood talk page. Other modifications can be made to the template to allow for custom alterations to the template.

As for the banner, there is currently a bot going through and tagging food and beverage categories.

You don't have to use it, but please consider it. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 09:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

While the projects are related, you're not confusing WikiProject Wine (the name is actually not the other way around) with a Task force are you? I've often seen the task forces within a project flagged with a parameter, but is this common for different projects? Tomas e (talk) 15:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That banner makes it look like WPJ Wine is a sub-component of WPJ Food, which isn't true; WPJ Wine is more relevant to these articles for several reasons. Plus the banner is not correct in other ways; each project has its own quality/importance scale ratings, that banner only shows one (whose?). The best solution is to use the "Within the scope of multiple WikiProjects" banner "WikiProjectBanners". I've taken the liberty of adding such a template to Talk:Wine; if people like it, we can do this on other wine pages. - Merzbow (talk) 16:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I've used the nesting function before as well, what if the entirety of the wine banner was added, I admit it does make the Wine Project look as a subsidiary and this project clearly has just as much notability as the project it was once a part of. I wonder if there is a way to take the wine banner and place it before the Food and Drink banner when adding the wine=yes function to it.--Chef Tanner (talk) 17:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but then the system breaks down again when yet a third project decides to tag a wine-related page. That's why I think the "WikiProjectBanners" multiple-project template is a good solution; it's used on many many articles, and can handle any number of project banners. - Merzbow (talk) 01:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

See e.g. (sorry not wine related) Talk:Thresher_shark which should be a member (but is not tagged fully yet) of WP:TOL, WP:FISH, WP:SHARKS, WP:Fishing and so on, non a sub project of FOOD and all more on topic and should be placed above and have more priority. Use the multi project banner, and always add FOOD last if you are doing it by bot, since other projects probably is more on topic if they placed the banner first. Then you can fix that manually later if need be. --Stefan ^talk 01:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

My error

I would like to apologize for the poor wording I used as well as my failure to elaborate my ideas for this proposal. Please realize that is all it is, a proposal. I have no intentions to forcibly remove your tag or or demote it to a task force, assumptions that couldn't be further from the truth.

As I have stated on the WP Food talk page, I was looking to unite the foodies of WP to accomplish several things:

• Simplify assessments of articles by pooling our resources,
• Associate the food projects together, allowing readers the chance to read related articles under the auspices of associated projects.
• Keep talk pages with overlapping subjects free of the clutter of multiple banners.

My reasoning is this:

1. I have spent weeks pairing the unassessed articles in WP Food, reviewing hundreds and not making any headway. I figured that the other projects were having the same issue and came up with this idea to resolve the problem: By pooling our resources we would put more people on the job thus completing the task quicker.
2. Wine is an indelible part of Iberian, French and Italian cuisines just as beer is to Germanic and Nordic cuisine. As much as we would like to think beer is beer, wine is wine and food is food and never the twain shall they meet, that is not the case.
3. This would allow overlapping subjects such as a beergarden or brew pub to to have one tag for both beer and food service or Coldstone Creamery which falls under the auspices of ice cream and food service. Off hand, I can think of a dozen separate cases with this type of overlap.

I have been working with the WikiBannerMeta people to find a way to accomplish this in the best way possible and have soliciting the input from these food and drink projects to discover the individual needs of the groups before implementing this. It would be completely voluntary for the group, currently it is only being used on the WP Food task forces and a couple of articles as a test. I have not removed any project tags and will not do so unless given permission.

Any questions, please post them on the banners talk page.

--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 04:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, since my understanding is that the use of a flag within WPFOOD for WPWINE articles precludes a separate project assessment, I'm afraid I don't see any use in having this option. Sorry. I have nothing against wine articles being tagged as general Food & drink articles, but if you plan to add more banners by bot, PLEASE add them BELOW the other banners, not above. Tomas e (talk)

That is not correct, there is an option to allow separate assessments for the Wine project, it is just not turned on at the moment. I have it set to take the assessment from the parent tag, but is easily changed. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 05:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Just chiming in my two cents I really don't like the idea of the combined banner because it does give the feel, as Tomas has pointed out, of the Wine Project being just a task force of WP:FOOD. For multiple banners the nesting function works just fine. While I'm not terribly disturbed about one banner being above or below the other, I do think it is common sense for the more relevant project being listed first. I think we need to consider the purpose of project banners on talk pages--namely to encourage readers/editors with questions about an article/topic to go to a source beyond the article talk page for more info. Despite popular opinion, banners are not an advertisement for a project and they certainly aren't a stake of ownership. Any edits or changes to banners should always keep this purpose first and foremost. If someone wants to comment/question/critique articles on German wine, Oak or Chardonnay would they be better served going to WP:FOOD or here? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 07:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've felt that the Start category of wine articles actually contains quite a range since the B category started to be applied more strictly (late 2007?). So C seems useful to this project. I guess more Start class will be upgraded to C, than B to C. Tomas e (talk) 21:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm in the process of going through our Start-class articles to look for more obvious promotions to C-class. If the article fulfills the following criteria I've generally reclassified it:

• Referenced, with multiple sources and inline references
• Illustrated
• >10 K in size
• Looks good in general, does not come across as too list-like

These criteria are somewhat arbitrarily chosen, and most likely a bit too stringent and "mechanical". But with 900+ Start-class articles to start with, I prefer not to have to read through all of them in detail, and have aimed to identify the more obvious ones. Tomas e (talk) 11:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the new C-class and I think your rough outline is fine as a criteria. The "Start class" was a bit broad and this new C-class will help define and separate those articles better. The change to A class is interesting as well. While I'm not certain about the benefits of chasing GA ever changing standards, it maybe worthwhile to start thinking about A class assessment rankings for articles we want to take above B. It may put us in better position towards achieving FAs. From just my own, personal standpoint, I would like to see all our "Top Importance" articles reach B-class before I will start to seriously think about working on wine FAs--though I will be glad to support and encourage anyone with such ambitions. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot or template problems with C-class

For some reason the bot does not pick up the articles I reassessed to C, even after I updated the template in what I thought was the right way. The question I asked at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index#Bot not picking up C-class? didn't really give any helpful replies. I must have done something wrong - can anyone figure out what? Do check the talk page I've wikilinked to, to get the full(er) story! Tomas e (talk) 21:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, now it has suddently picked up most - but not all C-class articles. It's definitely behaving erratic. I didn't know that bots showed vintage variation. Does it perhaps run on biodynamic principles? :-) Tomas e (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The most likely explanation is that the m:Job queue is long, so the category hasn't been updated yet. The category only shows 50 articles at the moment. Once the category itself is correct, run the bot again, and everything should be fine. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:21, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat related

In poking around I came across Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Alcohol in the Bible/archive1 and was surprised to see that Alcohol in the Bible was up for WP:FAC back in May but there was no mention (that I could tell) of it here on the project page. While I admit missing the addition of the FAC tag on the article's talk page (It is on my watchlist), I'm somewhat sadden at the missed opportunity to help out during the FAC period to get the article up to snuff. However there is some useful tidbits in the archived review for future developments. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD & notability of wine tastings

I just saw that St. Catharines Wine Tasting of 2005 is up for AfD. You find the discussion echoed on our project page. Tomas e (talk) 10:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

...and I must admit that although I did not nominate it or have voted, the AfD took place a short time after I tagged the article with a non-notable template. While the Judgment of Paris (wine) was a pivotal event that shaped the perception of the entire Californian wine industry, I guess we could question most other articles on specific wine tastings. Most of them list "winners" or the like, and that does not really seem to conform to our WP:WINEGUIDE policy. Or am I too strict? Take a look at Grand European Jury Wine Tasting of 1997, Great Chardonnay Showdown, Halekulani Wine Tasting of 2000, New York Wine Tasting of 1973, Ottawa Wine Tasting of 1981, San Diego Wine Tasting of 1975, The Judgment of Paris 30th Anniversary. Tomas e (talk) 20:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A tasting should at least have a major article devoted specifically to it, as opposed to just being mentioned in passing. Ugh, my language was poorly chosen. What I meant to say is that a tasting should not have a Wikipedia article about it unless there are reliable sources specifically devoted to discussing that tasting. A couple of news articles that just mention it in passing aren't enough. This seems to be in the spirit of our notability requirements. - Merzbow (talk) 20:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

As with most lists, competitions/tournaments and elections, It rarely makes sense to analyze their importance too soon. The Paris Judgment is only now (or for a few years) been reckognized as that pivotal moment. Even the french admit that now. Had you asked them a year or two after the tasting they'd have brushed it off. If you'd asked in 1985, who was the five greatest musical artists of the 20th century, Boy George would be on the list. Not so much now. My opinion on the matter is to wait until it reaches prominence or historical value - and focus on it then.--Nwinther (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

At least with regard to the current article up at AFD, I would have to say that a tasting against fourth and fifth level French estates isn't really a very impressive test and probably doesn't indicate much notability. Rmhermen (talk) 03:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Well quite a few of those tastings that Tomas mention use George Taber's Judgement of Paris book as a source, which does satisfy the WP:RS requirement and is fairly substantial in notability. I do agree with Nwinther point about analyzing the importance of these competitions so relatively soon. In an ideal world, an encyclopedia would include only those tastings (like the Judgement of Paris) that have had a substantial impact on the wine world. However, Wikipedia is plagued with so many "In the News" type events that will never have long term lasting significance that I can't help but wonder how you can reasonably justify excluding even minor wine events as long as they have some rudimentary coverage from local newspapers. This is the same type of problem that we've encountered with many wineries listings. While the spirit of WP:WINEGUIDE is meant to focus on the encyclopedic aspect of wine, this age of information provides such a stage that distinctly local, infinitesimally small wineries can pass the basic elements of WP:CORP and WP:N due to local newspaper coverage. Though we've haven't seen a massive onslaught of entries on these micro-wineries or County-fair type wine competitions, I really think that if that times comes the spirit of WP:WINEGUIDE will mean very little--if it doesn't already. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Still kicking, just a little quiet

Hey guys, just want to give an FYI that I'm still out and about even though I've been real quiet. Outside wiki-life has been hectic with work as well as studying for my Certified Wine Educator exam. But I've still been poking my head in here and there. One thing in particular that I've been doing a ton of research on is ways to improve our French wine article starting with the much needed History of French Wine (which I hope to bring live by this Thursday). So again, I'm still around but I'm just not as super active as I'd like to be. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, since it seems you have been putting your time to good use we may perhaps find it in our hearts to forgive you... :-) Tomas e (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool. Good luck on exams. MURGH ^disc. 10:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Have we had any wine DYKs since March 23rd?

According to our listings on Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/right panel our last wine related DYK was Mustum on March 23rd. I know that I've been slacking in keeping this updated but if anyone remembers any DYKs, please add them to the list. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Silly me should look at my talk page before speaking. :p I found a couple more DYKs since March 23rd but I'm sure there are still some more out there. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Strange edits by new accounts

I just noted a thing with two articles on my watchlist - French wine and Burgundy wine. Within minutes of each other, two newly registered users - Scaleshiper (talk · contribs) and TopsyTurvySwinger (talk · contribs) used their first and so far only edits to remove some material and statements from these articles claiming they were POV. While undisputed in my view, I could see how someone who knows nothing of the subject could think them POV, so I didn't consider them vandalism or anything like that, but I did restore the articles. However, this behaviour seems a bit too much of a coincidence to me, so I was thinking of some sort of sock puppetry, although the edits don't seem malicious enough for me to leverage such accusations straight away. Anyone else who has noted something similar with other wine articles or have any similar experiences? Tomas e (talk) 20:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

No, not on this subject (though I've seen it in the Military history section). It'd be cool though, if people who like to think they know a bit about wine would join this project, rather than (almost anonymously) begin editing articles - especially deleting other peoples work. For goodness sake, why don't they begin a discussion on the articles talk-page and find some common ground, at least. This has all the elements for a revert-war in it. I'd keep it the way it is (reverted to the alleged "NPOV" by the newcomers) as it doesn't do much harm, until we can figure out what to do and make it stick.--Nwinther (talk) 20:27, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it would be cool if people join the project, but there isn't, and shouldn't be, any requirement to do so before editing wine articles. I brought stevia to GA status without joining any project, for example. Also, in some cases it's pretty clear when an article violates the NPOV policy, and in such cases a discussion on a talk page should not be necessary. Assuming good faith, I suspect these new editors felt that way. On the other hand, I think he (or they) went a bit overboard in both articles, although I felt overall the cleanup on French wine was an improvement. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't "require" people to join a project before making edits - I myself edit many articles that aren't subject to any project I'm member of. However, It's not like French Wine is a stub, or a page that's had no attention the last few months. I DO believe that before you begin deleting whole paragraphs (and don't substitute them with something better), you make a topic of it in the Talk-page. Not because it is a "requirement" but because it is common courtesy. I've seen several edit-wars that could have been avoided by a "forewarning" of what the editor intended to do, plus a clearing-up of what the intention with the existing paragraph was (a work in progress, whatever). Also, I prefer going about editing with a bit of humility, especially towards the editors on whos shoulders I stand. Looking at the deleted sections in French Wine, it's not like those were outrageous claims or highly dubious. They were unsourced, sure, but wikipedia shouldn't be collections of quotes, nor should it be "French wine: Wine made in France".--Nwinther (talk) 08:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, in combination with your reply on your talk page I hear your opinion. But if every statement describing widely accepted characteristics of a region's and a country's wines, and their de facto market situation and notability, is considered POV to be removed on sight, then I question that what remains of the articles will be very useful to the readers. I must say that if its considered POV to write (or restore) e.g. that red Bordeaux is tannic and that is characterised as "fluff" to do so, then I had better reconsider if it is worthwhile using my time to contribute to this project. Sorry if I come off as a bit irritated - it's not because of "ownership issues" over sentences or wounded pride. However, it just felt like the % of my time I can spend on constructive edits and much-needed expansion of articles (as opposed to vandalism reversion and retrograde battles over meaningful content) just fell below an unacceptable threshold. Tomas e (talk) 22:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The edits to French wine look "true" to me. They make strong statements but seem to reflect consensus opinion in the wine world. They should be sourced eventually, but there is no harm in letting them stay for now. - Merzbow (talk) 00:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Tomas e, I know what you mean about how your time is spent here. Much of my time is spent reverting vandalism and not enough to expanding articles anymore, which isn't a good use of my time.

Nevertheless, even you admitted in your edit summary that the new editor removed "POVish" phrasing, which led me to wonder, why bother restoring it when you know it violates Wikipedia policies? He changed grandiose claims that require sources; it isn't enough to let it go as what we think the opinions of wine enthusiasts are.

Sentences like "The better Bordeaux wines are powerful, tannic, and very long lived" is an opinion. "They include some of the most collected wines of the world" constitutes mere speculation without a source to back it up. "Better Burgundies, both red and white, are often described as elegant wines" states an opinion using weasel words. Unsourced opinions and speculation aren't acceptable in an encyclopedia article.

I could go on. The phrase "...command some of the highest prices of any wines in the world" is also weasel-worded peacock phrasing; "...rank among the world's most expensive wines" would be more objective but still needs sourcing. Saying that Champagne is "home to the world's most famous sparkling wine" is a peacock way of saying it's "home to the sparkling wine that bears its name." Calling a climate "notorious" is also unnecessary, as is describing a wine as a weasel-word "powerful" rather than a more acceptable term like "full bodied".

See what I mean? There is plenty of room for improvement without restoring the POV stuff. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. Per policy, "By value or opinion,[2] on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute."" Are any of those statements subject to dispute by any reliable source? That the "better Bordeaux wines are powerful, tannic, and very long lived"? That they "include some of the most collected wines of the world"? That they "command some of the highest prices of any wines in the world"? No, they are not. Instead of spending time arguing against the obvious truth, in that same amount of time you could have easily found sources for those statements, no? - Merzbow (talk) 03:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I refer you to Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms. It's fine to state undisputed facts. It isn't acceptable to state them in an unnecessarily aggrandizing fashion. I suggested ways to improve such statements above. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Another issue w/ new account and WP:COI

See Talk:Spinning cone. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Notice placed on user's talk page in case s/he doesn't see your article talk page comment. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

OpenWine Consortium

What are your guys view on this? It appears to be a sort of "Facebook for Wine people" that is fairly new. The article has some major WP:COI issues and when I looked into re-writing the article I was dishearten that I couldn't find any mainstream, independent sources apart from blog entries. It appears that this article is a little "too soon" for this organization to gain enough steam, notability and coverage from mainstream reliable sources. (But hey, Robert Parker, Decanter and Spectator probably wouldn't have meet Wikipedia's notability requirement in their first year either :p) So I've put the article up on AfD. If anyone disagrees with my observation, please do speak up. More importantly, if anyone finds as WP:RS for the article, let's add them. While it would be wonderful if the members of OWC took an interest in improving Wikipedia's wine coverage, I'd rather not turn a blind eye to Wikipedia's policies and let an illegible article on their organization slide just to curry favor. It's nothing about power (like we really have power here :p) but simply Wikipedia policies. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple answer: This organization fails to understand the purpose of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not here as a publicity vehicle for organizations. I find it curious that they think they need an article; that kind of thinking implies that they view Wikipedia as a means to generate publicity. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Delete it. I've never seen a page that distributes so little actual information, yet so much self-glorification (my own user-page excluded) regarding who they are and what they intend to do. Tell them to look at any other organizaitons page. Not even Amnesty International is that "holy".--Nwinther (talk) 07:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OpenWine Consortium. I also posted a long reply on their own forum. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

More AfDs

Just FYI, I started a couple other AfD discussions here:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/French Camp Vineyards
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spencer Roloson Winery

~Amatulić (talk) 00:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• Also: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quailhurst Vineyard Estate. - Merzbow (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• Looks like all of 'em may end up being kept, although I think the arguments for keeping Spencer Roloson are bogus interpretations of WP:CORP, and I just explained why near the top of the nomination after querying the folks over at the talk page of [[WP:CORP]. But keeping's OK; at least the deletion nominations are spurring improvement, albeit a tiny amount. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• Quailhurst doesn't have anything remotely resembling an appropriate source, if it's kept it's going straight to DRV. - Merzbow (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Any wine related themes for the Beijing Olympics?

I'm just curious if anyone knows of any wine articles we could work on that has some connection to the Beijing Olympics starting in a few days? I know Wine in China could use some work and I may have enough material to add to Ancient Greece and Wine about the use of wine during the Olympic games. Does anyone have any other ideas? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Upgrades from stub to start

I've been doing a bit of work on the articles on Crozes-Hermitage AOC, Saint-Joseph AOC and Cornas AOC, and looking at the assesment scale, It'd seem to me that these three articles are now on a Start-class level. However, I don't know the procedure for upgrading. Can anyone help (also in determining if they are Start-articles at all)?--Nwinther (talk) 08:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh they're definitely starts now. Great work! A broad rule of thumb of the difference between stubs and starts is that stubs haven't evolved into having defined sections (like "History", "Wines", "Climate & Geography") and is essentially only a few lines. As for the procedure for upgrading, we place a lot of good faith in the judgment and discernment of fellow project members and if you think the article is ready for upgrade just tweak the talk page banner to "start" instead of stub. Again, great work! Agne^Cheese/^Wine 09:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. My method of approach was simply swiping the Côte-Rôtie AOC design and fill in information on the other appellations. I found it to be a good way of getting the "basic" information down on "paper" (see my previous post on standardising articles). I'll be using that approach with a number of other Rhône-AOC-articles (I got a good book on the subject, at my refs show).--Nwinther (talk) 10:47, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice. One thing I'd be a little weary of is the "Notable Producer" area which can be a POV magnet and WP:WINEGUIDE-ish. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 10:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry. I won't be including such lists in the future. (If it's a POV it's the authors POV. Would they belong on a seperate article/list: "producers of..." with the "notable" removed?)--Nwinther (talk) 11:15, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a POV magnet because it encourages anons/spammers and even other good faith editors to add their "favorite" producers to the list--making it more a wineguide than an encyclopedia entry. It would probably have the same issue even if the word "notable" was removed. Ideally, rather than having a list, truly notable producers would be incorporated into the article prose with a mention of what makes them notable in relation to that wine region. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 11:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

You can do that? I always figured that the mentioning of producers were due to some historical thingy, like the 1855-classification. So if an author believes that a certain producer is noteworthy, and gives some hint of the reason why, it's possible to include this (in-line sourced, of course) description in an article? (The editor remains absolutely NPOV of course - only relaying other peoples opinion).--Nwinther (talk) 11:42, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it can be tricky because you do want to want to be as NPOV as possible and avoid WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL terms. But if a reference says that "such and such producer brought international acclaim to XXX wine region" it is fair to include that with a source. I would even stretch it and say that if you mention the author such as "In her work "XXX" Jancis Robinson notes that Chateau Example produces wine that is a good representation of the style from the wine region" that should be fair game. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 11:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll note that other articles have had success (to varying degrees) by requiring that any new entry to a list have its own article already. List of twelve-step groups is one such article; it recently got drastically shortened through implementation of that rule. The presumption is that articles exist on Wikipedia if they meet notability criteria for inclusion. So if someone comes along and adds to the list, and there isn't an article on it, the list entry gets deleted. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I can get behind that.--Nwinther (talk) 08:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

New category

While reading the 2008 South Ossetia War article I came across this article: 2006 Russian ban of Moldovan and Georgian wines. It is in no wine related category and I can't find any that is a good fit. I would like to suggest that we need a new category, something like Category:Wine history for articles such as these. Rmhermen (talk) 16:37, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Community forum on standards

Based upon a discussion on the WP Food talk page, a community forum has been set up for the various Food and Drink projects develop a set of Manual of Style guidelines for use in articles under the auspices of the related Food and Drink WikiProjects and their task forces. These guidelines would be similar to the MoS guidelines for biographies or legal topics.

The following pages have created these pages for this purpose:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Article guidelines

Once a consensus has been reached, this page is where we will post the standards.

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Food and drink/Article guidelines

Please discuss the development of the standards on this page.

Upon a general consensus has been reached for each set of standards, we will submit it to the appropriate discussion board for a ratification discussion.

All members of this project are invited to participate.

--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 02:51, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

And the section on wine over there is empty. Maybe I'm not seeing something but I'm surprised I can't find an article guideline here in the WikiWino project, like other projects have. For example, fully half of the project page WP:FISH has incredibly detailed guidelines for articles; see in particular WP:FISH#Article format, much of it which can be adapted to articles about wine varietals. That would at least provide a standard for articles about specific wines. Articles about regions, wineries, terroir, and so forth would have different standards we can develop later. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

More Afd

I just saw Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chateau_Civrac. --Stefan ^talk 22:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Wine Spectator

This article will need some eyes and has apparently drawn the interest of the magazine itself to the talk page regarding the recent "scandal" about the bogus restaurant entry in the Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards. While I have no aversion to having "criticism" or "scandal" sections in wine articles (like the Brunello scandal etc), I do feel like a stickler for encyclopedic context and reliable sources. Namely, I want to see reliable, independent, third party sources (and not just blogs) talk about a subject to demonstrate some kind of lasting notability and encyclopedic context of the scandal. If this scandal really has legs, then these third party mainstream sources will come. Otherwise it just seems like a flash in the pan and something that is more fodder for a tabloid than an encyclopedia entry. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I've watchlisted the article presently. Steven Walling (talk) 03:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

If dnigro is describing the "scandal" truthfully, there's really a reason to use those quotation-marks. This hardly qualifies as a notable occurence - on level with many half-news put in papers and on TV - or a typo that spells out something dirty. How could anyone gain publicity from publishing such nothingness? I would only expect ridicule.--Nwinther (talk) 11:25, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I had a go at a dry mention of the event with some sources of varying weight. Please tweak it as you see it. MURGH ^disc. 03:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The point of this hoax against Wine Spectator seems to have been to demonstrate that their wine list reviews are meaningless and can simply be purchased, if you do enough background work to appear legitimate. I have to wonder how many they actually turn down after receiving those $250 fees. Nevertheless, it's notable to mention in the article that they were victims of a rather elaborate hoax, but in the interest of WP:WEIGHT it doesn't deserve more than a mention with a footnote referencing more details. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Grape digram pic

Hey guys, the Project Greenspun group has put together a diagram of a wine grape Image:Wine grape diagram en.svg with the author requesting some feed back. Hey a look and share your thoughts! Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The best compliment is to use the image in an article. I added it to Winemaking. The section to which I added it could now use some expansion explaining "pressings". ~Amatulić (talk) 04:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Images and legal mumbo jumbo

OK, I got permission from the CdP-producers syndicate to reproduce their map of the lieux-dits (or a version thereof) on wikipedia.org. However, some legal stuff and a wierd procedure has now resulted in the image being deleted. I simply do not understand what has to be done in order to get an image approved, as I have not only gathered permissions but also sent them to GNU (whomever that may be). Still my image is deleted and they've returned my email with more legal mumbo. To be frank, I seriously consider dropping the whole image-part of wikipedia, as it simply doens't seem worth the bother. Can anyone explain the procedures in laymans terms? FRUSTRAITIIIING!!!--Nwinther (talk) 11:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I don't really understand most of the legal stuff here. I would email back OTRS and ask them to give you a straight and simple answer to-What do I need to do to prove that this image is eligible on Wikipedia? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe WP:OTRS needs to have a copy of the permission you got. The best thing is probably to have the copyright owner send that permission, or place a public domain license notice on their web page containing the image. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been communicating with "permissions" on wikipedia. Still trying to figure out how to go about this one. I don't want to bother the copyright holder too much on this. The easiest thing for them is to say "You can't have it" or simply ignore me, rather than taking time out of their calendar to acommodate wikipedias wishes regarding legal status. God this is tiresome.--Nwinther (talk) 08:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Potential COI at Wine-Searcher

Another article to keep an eye on. One of the main contributors to the article User:Steve.bassey has been adding a substantial amount of spam wine-searcher links on other wine articles. I'm having serious network issues with it taking forever to load any page so I can't review the reference links on the wine searcher article. If anyone has time, can you check it out and scan for POV? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I went over it and removed puffery. It should be more neutral now, although I can't shake the feeling that the article was created as a means to drive more traffic to that site. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Zinfandel under GA review

Zinfandel is being reviewed for Good Article status. The reviewer made some initial comments and then gave a week's probation to make improvements. Thus far, I have been the only one making substantive edits (including a new infobox picture). Others have helped out by tagging places that need citations, or places that appear to be original research. I've fixed those, as far as I can tell.

Would someone please go over the History section, and determine if it's organized in a sensible fashion? That was a criticism by one reviewer, and I'm uncertain what to do with it, other than make sure everything is referenced.

Unfortunately, User:FlagSteward, who made significant improvements and expansion to this article in the past, seems to have dropped off Wikipedia. There's a question about the source he cited in the lead section concerning the relative temperatures of Napa and Sonoma. If the question can't be resolved, I will remove the region names from the lead.

Several places in the article also reference Decanter magazine, which is sufficiently obscure that libraries don't have it, and the referenced article is not online. It's effectively unverifiable. Alternative sources to that should be found. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

For the most part I would assume good faith for offline sources but if there is competing sources to contradict something in the Decanter sources (such as what we have with the Napa/Sonoma issue), then I wouldn't have a problem removing the ref and disputed content. As for the review, I'm a bit apathetic to the whole GA process. The quality of the little plus mark varies greatly from one reviewer to the next and can even border on lunacy with requirements to have some things double cited for redundancy with the same footnote. There is benefit in getting an outside peer-review type opinion and you've done a great job in improving the article based on that. The history section looks fine and gives appropriate weight to the Croatian heritage of the grape. But if you ultimately can't convince this one Wikipedian editor that this is a "good article", I wouldn't sweat it out. The green plus mark means nothing towards getting it to FA and very little (if anything) to the readers who are the real audience and focus of the article. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Gosh, Agne, you sound so jaded about GA status! Any reviewer needs guidelines and policies to back up opinions, so you are free to ask another reviewer to chime in if needed. Personally I believe a large number of good articles is more useful than a small number of featured articles; I don't bother with FA status because I don't find the small increment of added value over GA to be worth the effort.

By the way, does anyone have the Sullivan reference? Someone tagged this sentence as needing clarification, and I agree: "Little is known about this second grape, but its name suggests that it originated in a religious house, so it may represent a clone of Primitivo that had been brought to England via Gibraltar." It's in Zinfandel#United States east coast (1829 - 1850). I don't know what a religious house has to do with clones and Gibraltar either, but its significance might be clarified by the Sullivan. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Heh, jaded...apathetic. Despite being a one time avid supporter and GA reviewer myself, I've found myself shaking my head at too much going on there. I found that the benefit of the process is at face value a guarantee peer review over the broken PR system itself. While the green tick mark itself doesn't add any prestige or value to the article, making improvements based on another editor's opinion is worthwhile. But improving the article is the extent of the value, chasing green tick marks doesn't seem to be worth much. The FA process is much a more indepth and extensive peer review and while the overall value to the reader in recognizing the gold star is debatable, I think the odds of it being more valuable to the reader is greater with FA than with GA. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could give some help but Decanter's archives have issues. Or Sullivan's article isn't online, as you suspect. I'm no good with the fine details you're battling with, so I don't see how I could contribute. For what it's worth I think you're doing a fine job on the article. MURGH ^disc. 21:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's OK, it turns out that Chapter 2 of Sullivan is online (the citation had a link to it), so I was able to fix that part. Regarding Decanter, there are far too many places in the article that cite an essentially unverifiable source. If you can find alternative sources that make the same claims as the sentences that cite the Decanter article, that would help. If not, we can assume for now that the citations are accurate. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Woohoo! It passed! Zinfandel is now a Wikipedia:Good article. Great work to all who contributed. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re-direct move request at Talk:Sine Qua Non

Just an FYI. Currently the redirect is going to the Battlestar Galatica episode. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

There are some responses already, before I had gotten around to decide where to post the "request note". I know where to notify a move request, but for requesting a redirect change request or DAB issue, it's a first for me. Anyone know from experience where the arbiters for this type of case hang out? Must say I was pretty suprised at the opposition I found on this, and I've never been 3R'd by an admin fighting for fiction minutia before. MURGH ^disc. 20:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is needs to go to WP:RM for a final arbiter. I would probably give it a week's time and if a clear consensus emerges, go ahead and fix the redirect. I would hope that an admin would at least respect consensus. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Tempranillo article delisted

oh! oh! I see the Tempranillo article has been delisted. what does this mean? is it no longer a Good Article? --BodegasAmbite (talk) 10:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, if you look at Talk:Tempranillo#GA Sweeps Review you'll see there was plenty of warning given to make some suggested improvements before de-listing it from the Good Articles list. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Prosecco

An editor just added a long, unsourced and a bit POV expansion to the Prosecco article. As a newbie, I didn't want to swoop right in and fix things. So I dropped him a note on his talk, giving him some pointers and directing him to come here if he has any questions. I plan on giving him a few days to tidy things up but we'll probably want to keep an eye on the article in case nothing happens. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

In most cases I would agree with you about the few days. However, I got a bit suspicious when a new editor smacks down 10+ K written in good English in a single edit, when the subject and style of writing hints that a non-native speaker of Shakespeare's language ought to be responsible. So I did a quick Google search and found that the text had been lifted verbatim from the Association for the regulation of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene Prosecco wine. Since it was a clear copyright violation I saw no other choice but to delete it all and add a user warning template to the "perpetrator". Tomas e (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah...too much extension of good faith on my part. Good detective work, Tomas. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Observations from the bottom of the article pyramid 1: Sannio

When I was browsing through the bottom of our article pyramid - the numerous stub/low ones - to look for reclassification candidates and the odd delisting, I stumbled upon an ex-stub, now redirect, which had a strange editing history - Sannio. It used to be a short stub on an Italian DOC. Then it go be a redirect to List of Italian DOC wines. Then it got to be another redirect to a completely different subject, Samnium. I have a feeling it would be possible to be a bit upset with Attilios (talk · contribs) for just changing the redirect to a completely different subject with the edit summary "correct redirect" instead of creating a disambiguation page, but I would prefer that someone who feels more at home with the Italian wine articles deals with this. I don't feel that I'd be the best judge of what deserves a stub on its own and not, when it comes to Italian plonk. Tomas e (talk) 17:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well that it is a bit of a mess. I'll take a look. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay...in looking at the info available for the Sannio DOC, it is essentially a "catch all DOC" for wines from Benevento. It is rarely seen on export labels and accounts for a infinitesimally small piece of Campania's DOC production. I think the best solution would be for Sannio to redirect to an article on Campania wine--whenever that gets created. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 21:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Observations from the bottom of the article pyramid 2: Redlink

I also noted that our assessment log contains two redlinks, i.e., articles that are still in there (and presumably counted towards the sums in the assessment matrix) despite having been deleted several bot runs ago. They are Crahasani-Vin (winery) (in Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Wine articles by quality/4) and Rocanales (in the page Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Wine articles by quality/5). Has anyone seen this phenomenon before, or do we need to talk to the good folks who do bot-code-crunching and bugfixing? If so, does anyone speak their language better than myself? Tomas e (talk) 17:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Coding and bot stuff is way beyond my little wino brain. It may be worthwhile to ask over at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:48, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it was simply because the Talk pages were not deleted when the articles were. So I just deleted the project tags from the still existing talk pages. Why the Talk pages were not deleted, when they usually are, I don't know, but that doesn't really seem to cause us any problems now. Tomas e (talk) 11:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

If the talk page is blank, and there's no associated article, you can add the {{db-empty}} tag to it, and an administrator will speedily delete it. I have just done that to the two talk pages identified, so they should go away soon. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Chaptalization almost GA

I've been working to address the comments of the Good Article review from a year ago, on the chaptalization article. I've spent a lot of time fixing all the issues, and got the article into better shape. There are two sentences tagged with "citation needed". I can't find anything verifying those claims (that chaptalization can extract more flavor compounds than simply increasing the alcohol, and that chaptalization is essential for avoiding the need for sterile conditions during winemaking).

If someone could verify or deny these claims, then we can re-submit this article for GA review. While I find the topic personally distasteful as a Californian, I am pleased with how the article turned out. It's reasonably short yet complete. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well the first statement was added by someone after I worked on the article back in April 2007 so I'm not really sure if there even is a reference for it since it sounds a little off to me. The second statement was added for me (and Robinson ref is present in the version I linked above), however in re-reading the claim and the ref, I realized that the thought was rather clumsily formatted and unnecessarily confusing. I originally included it as an illustration of other ways that chaptalization is used apart from just adding "body". The point was that alcohol levels play an important role in limiting microbial activity in the must and one of the threats of lower alcohol levels is a higher risk of some nasty things getting into wine. But regions and winemakers that don't practice chaptalization point out that stringent sterilization and other chemical treatments can negate that risk making chaptalization unnecessary. In hindsight, I think that long rambling point offers little overall benefit to the article and, frankly, say it's best to disregard both lines. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:30, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

To me, admittedly without really checking the reference literature in detail, both claims seem questionable, at least the way they are written for the moment. 1. Sure, the alcohol concentration and time are both factors in the extraction of flavours, but so is for example temperature and the way the maceration is performed (pumping over, pushing down and so on). Perhaps the statement is more or less true for a given batch of grapes, but if you take a wider view of the winemaking process: trying to harvest grapes at a ripeness where they need little or no chaptalization is likely to give more flavours. I've never heard of a flying winemaker recommending increased chaptalization to get more flavours in a wine! 2. Sure, alcohol is an important preservative in wine, but this statement must refer to situations before the wine has fermented fully (below 8-10%?) rather than to any difference between, say, an 11% and a 13% finished wine? If chaptalization brings the alcohol level up quicker during fermentation and maceration, I could understand the statement. But a statement which could be read to mean that chaptalization has almost the same effect as the generously added ethanol in a fortified wine, is almost certainly wrong. You probably have to go up to 18% and above to get a true increase in stability by being able to kill off a wider range of bacteria. At least for longevity in bottle, acidity and tannin level seem to have much more effect that any differences in alcohol in, say, the 10-13% range. Many early- to mid-20th century Bordeaux Grand Cru Classé wines are supposed to have been 10-11% in alcohol and many were/are drinking well 30+ years on. So I'm not sure there are good references to these two statements as written. Tomas e (talk) 08:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess we can agree on losing the first claim about chaptalization extracting additional flavors. Maybe it can if it increases fermentation time, but I haven't found a source confirming it.

As for the second, the only things I found that referred to sterility and bacteria were in the context of acidity, not alcohol. So pH may be a bigger factor than alcohol. I guess I we can remove both statements. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:28, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I have deleted the two contentious claims and re-nominated the article for GA review. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there a NPOV way to talk about vintages?

I've been thinking about some of the sentiments of WP:WINEGUIDE and I wonder if we should revisit the topic of vintages. Last weekend, I was down in the Willamette Valley AVA doing some wine tasting and I was shocked at the consistently poor quality of the 2007 vintage--particularly the Pinots (noir and gris). Even the Chardonnays had the same sense of diluted flavors, light aromatics and almost non-existent finishes. Only the Pinot blancs showed any life and even that was spotty among producers. When I got back home and started to read more about the vintage, I found that area had a bad deluge of rain during the crucial ripening period and later at harvest. Some wineries harvested their grapes earlier to avoid the chance of rot. While opinions on the quality of the vintage is clearly POV and subjective, I wonder if information about climate and growing conditions can be done in an objective, NPOV matter? I see some value in having an article like Vintages in the Willamette Valley AVA or 1990s Mosel vintages with a short blurb about the condition of the vintages, harvest times, etc. It would be like a wine counterpart to the sports articles like 2008 Chicago Cubs season. One tricky problem is the slippery slope because I'm sure there will be a natural tendency to want to include "Vintage grades" from folks like Parker, Spectator and Decanter and then we'll start getting into more of the POV oriented wineguide stuff. What do you guys think? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

And to add to the trickiness and POV of dealing with vintages, here is a link with Jay Miller/Wine Advocate view based on barrel samples that 2007 is an outstanding vintage. While here is a more local report talking about the "off year" that 2007 was in quality. And Wine Spectator hits the middle road with a B grade saying that some producers did well, some did not. Funny how opinions on wine vary across the board. How do we keep that out of the articles? Maybe we'll be opening up a can of worms with this whole vintage thing. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think there is a way to write NPOV about (some) vintages, but it would probably have to be stuff of which there is general agreement, preferably based on objective parameters (hot/cold year, hail/no hail in spring, rain/no rain during harvest, high acid/low acid wines and so on), and where the assessment on the vintage has stood the test of time. When I visited Alsace less than a month ago, it was interesting to hear the somewhat diverging views of winemakers on the relative merits of the Alsace vintages 2005-2007. But most seemed to agree on 2003 (hot and weird) and 2004 (high acid wines, good potential if you don't prefer fruit bombs, needs time). And I heard one opinion that with a few years hindsight, 2000 had turned out worse than initally thought and 2001 much better. Just to confirm that it's not just on Agne's side of the pond where it sometimes seems that rating a vintage can be a bit more complicated than Parker's table indicates. Actually, comparing Parker's and Decanter's tables is rather instructive. Often, but not always, they agree on the general merits of a vintage, but Decanter seems to recommend at least 10 years more of cellaring for many vintages...! Coming back to the original subject, I suppose it should be possible to state 1982, 1986 and 1990 as very good Bordeaux vintages, 1991-1993 as lousy in Bordeaux, and 2003 as a very hot and therefore "odd" (for better or worse, depending on grape variety, region and taste) vintage across Europe. But perhaps there isn't really much notable to write about for many vintages? In a wine guide I suppose you would probably just go for "average" for such a vintage, but I'm not sure if that approach is the encyclopedic way. So I'm not sure that a guide to all vintages in a region, as opposed to a list of "notable" vintages, is really possible to create without journeying into potential POV territory. Tomas e (talk) 20:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it makes sense that such articles will come about, certainly when they outgrow the articles about the regions themselves, but beyond the concrete climate and agricultural data, won't there necessarily be opinion involved in anything used as RS describing the consequences? It doesn't seem right that we be the ones to discriminate between sources whether they come from wine critics/writers or vintners, oenologists etc. but rather have to keep a very transparent policy about the context of the sources, and when possible place them next to each other. We couldn't just reiterate Sucking's praise of the quality of 1997/2000 Piemonte.. The parallel to sports season articles is good, but compared to your example Cubs season numbers-dominated article, a more wordy one like Manchester United F.C. season 1998–99 shows the editorial subjectiveness that begins to appear.

[ed confl.]And yes as Tomas e writes, there is something to staying with the worthwhile and broadly covered material, rather than taking an almanac approach of documenting every year like I imagine sports WPians do. MURGH ^disc. 21:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Wine

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I had a read through the list of selected and non-selected articles and found rather many that in my mind fulfill the criteria for inclusion. Perhaps they are too many - so far I haven't nominated any. Have a look at User:Tomas e/Wine articles to be nominated for Wikipedia 0.7! Tomas e (talk) 21:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• bump to avoid archiving this. I made a few comments on Tomas' page and I would encourage other wine project members to take a look and comment as well. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just put in 22 nominations on the page - the ones I listed as "should be included" minus one which still has a cleanup template (Rosé) plus those among "should possibly be included" which had received support from someone else. Unfortunately, I had not checked the exact deadline for additional nominations, which was this past midnight. Sorry about that. So unless someone is extra nice just because it's our project, which seems sort of unlikely, these articles will be for the next version. Tomas e (talk) 10:12, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the template on Rosé was rather easy to remove, so that should make 23 nominations. Tomas e (talk) 10:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Although I missed the deadline a couple of them (6 out of 23 from the look of it) seem to have been included as late additions. Tomas e (talk) 17:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

A WolterBot cleanup listing for us?

A little over half a year ago someone supplied the projects with two to-do-lists, a Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/To do list full and a Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/To do list short. I found these lists quite useful, although they are now rather out of date. I have noticed that many other projects use WalterBot to generate rather extensive cleanup listings. The general concept is explained in User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings. As an example, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Cats/Cleanup listing. What do you say - should we try to sign up WPWine to this bot? I say try, because Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Cleanup listing indicates that you could run into setup problems. Tomas e (talk) 15:00, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

it's worth a shot. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:22, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The first bot-generated list is now available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/Cleanup listing, and this list will be updated now and then. For those who feel like they have too little to do, there are currently 316 WPWine articles which are flagged for cleanup. I put the subscription template, which also include a link to this list, just below the assessment log window on the project page. I assume that someone will move it if they figure out a better place. Tomas e (talk) 15:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Way cool. That's a great way to prioritize the 2000+ articles here. I just used it to get rid of a "citation needed" tag in Syrah. A link to this page should be added to the "tasks" list on the project page also. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:46, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Bordeaux template?

I was looking at the mass of Bordeaux related articles-Bordeaux wine, History of Bordeaux wine, Bordeaux wine regions, Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, Alexis Lichine's classification of Bordeaux wine, Classification of Saint-Émilion wine, Classification of Graves wine, Cru Bourgeois, Graves, Sauternes (wine), Garagistes, Claret, Haut-Médoc AOC, Regional Bordeaux AOCs, etc--and thinking that we need a dedicated Bordeaux navigational template. Is anyone code savvy enough to take a crack at it? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Although I'm very much trying to expand my horizons, I could start on something and see how it goes in the coming cold days. I had already bitten off a big Bdx AOCs chunk that I thought would need some nav template in the end.. MURGH ^disc. 22:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

What's a navigational template?--Nwinther (talk) 14:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The kind of template described in the WP:NAVBOX essay. MURGH ^disc. 01:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Globalize tag on Zinfandel article

Another editor has made the claim that the Zinfandel article needs to be globalized because it is too biased towards the US. On the talk page I've tried to explain that the coverage is proportional to the grape's relevance in the world of the wine and pointed to the Zinfandel entries on many of the most esteemed wine references. If anything, the article is marginally out of balance with the extensive coverage on the grape's Croatian origins. Even the GA reviewer, a "wine layman", noticed this. But I think the benefits outweigh the negatives and support the inclusion of the extensive coverage. Considering that two of the articles main contributors--Flag Steward and Amatulic--are probably two of our most NPOV and Globalization aware editors, I do find the claim that the article needs to be globalized further to be quite odd. In fact, I have to chuckle when I looked at the history and saw that Flag's (as his IP address) major rewrite edit was "Rewrite in accordance with WP:GLOBAL". If the balance of coverage could pass Flag's strict WP:GLOBAL view, then I think the article is in good shape. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I suspect the tag was put there because the lead section does seem to be a bit more US-weighted than the rest of the article. I didn't notice this myself until I saw you removing that tag. I'll mull it over and see what can be done. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

More illustrations in the pipeline

Some good news on some wine-related illustrations that will be rolling in from two other language editions. A user who is primarily active on frwiki, has recently resumed drawing maps of French wine regions. Some of our French region articles already use the maps *he produced last year. We just got two more maps (Provence and Corsica) and were told Languedoc and Champagne is on the way.
And if that wasn't enough, I found out that one of the users over at dewiki has received a number of high-class photos of grape varieties from the collections of the Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute, taken by en employee of the institute and released under GFDL! He just uploaded three to Commons. Two were of varieties which do not have articles in enwiki, de:Arnsburger and de:Bronner. The third was Gouais blanc a.k.a. Weißer Heunisch, the variety which is all but extinct from commercial vineyards but has been revealed by DNA analysis to be present in the pedigree of a large number of classic varieties. I don't know how many more images that are on the way, but I hope this is a source that will yield more images in the future. Tomas e (talk) 21:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well that is great news! The more illustrations the better. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I'm the uploader of the grape varieties pics from the Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute. You can see the first 16 uploaded pics (they are alle uploaded to commons) here: de:Benutzer:Martin_Bahmann/Bildergalerie2#Rebsorten. More will come soon...greetings from Mainz/Germany Martin Bahmann (talk) 10:34, 15 November 2008 (UTC) (Martin Bahmann)

Edit war on Charles Shaw wine

About the inclusion of snopes.com as a reference link. Feel free to add your thoughts. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Good grief. Not sure I want some. There is one statement on the talk that jumps at me, "Snopes is a reliable source used frequently on Wikipedia". Do we know this to be true? MURGH ^disc. 17:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't know. There is no mention of snopes at WP:RS and I could only find one instance where it is even mentioned in the archives of the WP:RS talk page and even then it was spoken of as a "non-encyclopedic" source. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

At least Snopes lists its sources, so with a little effort one could go on from there and find consensus RS. MURGH ^disc. 18:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Plonk

Looking at the article Plonk, it seemed wanting in the attention department, the process is hopefully started with Talk:Plonk#Requested move. Please weigh in. MURGH ^disc. 11:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

It's now a disambiguation page with links to the appropriate articles. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Sevé

I think we need an article on a blend called Sevé. See http://www.badgermtnvineyard.com/bmvseve.htm . Badagnani (talk) 20:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no "blend" called "Sevé", it is being used as a marketing term by that winery. I think it means "sap" but the accent would be wrong though, and perhaps that is an error.--Chef Tanner (talk) 20:54, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's a proprietary term just used by this winery? If so, how do you know? Badagnani (talk) 20:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

A Google search ([2]) shows all hits are Badger Mountain except this one. Badagnani (talk) 20:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the latter is a liqueur, not a wine.[3]. Badagnani (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

"Sève" means sap or sappy, sometimes used as a descriptor for a liquid's elegant qualities. "Sevé" seems to be both a plausible surname and nickname for people named Severiano, as well as the name of this Badger Mountain winery product. I can't see any WP:RS warranting an article.. MURGH ^disc. 21:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response. I wonder how they came up with this name, which fooled me into thinking it was a term in actual wide use. I just got a bottle of it earlier today, which prompted me to look on WP to find more about it. Badagnani (talk) 21:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Sparkling and Dessert wines

After the Beaujolais nouveau article got quite a bit of attention and and news coverage, I realized that it maybe prudent to start tidying up the next likely articles to get a significant amount of attention. With the holidays approaching it seems likely that sparkling wines, most notably Champagne will get a lot of looks but I there is also a spike of attention for dessert wines as well. If anyone is interested, here are is a list of some articles that could probably use a little more love and affection (especially with referencing). Feel free to add to the list of if you think of any others. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• History of Champagne - The origins section in the main Champagne article is a little long and very incomplete. It seems worthy of a splinter article, ala History of Sherry etc.
• Sparkling wine production - referencing mostly
• Champagne in popular culture - Great article but most glaring is the absence of how the tradition of associating Champagne with New Years started. When this section is made it would probably be a good idea to create redirects like Champagne and New Years to it.
• Various red links on List of champagne producers as well as notable sparkling wine producers- When people pick out their bottles of bubbly they are likely to want to look them up. This include some of the most popular, inexpensive brands like André, Cook's, Tott's and Korbel.
• Sparkling wine - While I was originally a big proponent of merging in the regional varieties (Cava, Sekt, Cremant etc) after working on this article, I think that some--like Cremant should probably be splintered out into their own articles.
• Dessert wine - start class with referencing issues
• Fortified wine - start class with referencing issues
• Tokaji - start class with referencing issues
• History of Port - same reasoning as Champagne
• Muscat (grape and wine) - grape family used in the production of a lot of popular sparkling and dessert wines. Article could use a lot of work
• Straw wine - start class with referencing issues
• Vin Santo - start class with referencing issues
• Noble rot - start class with referencing issues
• Late harvest wine - start class with referencing issues

DYKs for New Years

The DYK project is currently collecting thematic hooks for the December holidays including New Years. I have already submitted History of Champagne but it would be nice if we could get some more sparkling wine/Champagne related hooks to be featured throughout the day. There are several Champagne producers that could be featured as well some Cremant AOCs that can be created and expanded. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

De Bortoli Wines

A large number of articles have been started by User:Beckycakes for wines, beers and people related to De Bortoli Wines. Some have already been speedy deleted. Please help to keep an eye on this. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I tagged a boutique brewery article for speedy deletion, and left a conflict-of-interest warning on the editor's talk page (for all the good that will do). ~Amatulić (talk) 00:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

How's our coverage of the top prestige wines?

Well, if someone likes to figure out, I just stumbled across a recently published report produced by London International Vintners Exchange called the "Liv-ex Power 100". It lists what is supposed to be the top 100 fine wines/fine wine brands, based on prices and trading volume in the second-hand market as well as ratings by Wine Advocate and some others. It seems to me that this list is something of a list of "highly notable fine wines", drawn up using a transparent methodology, and therefore would be of use to us in checking our coverage of this kind of wines. If anyone wants to go through it to see if we have articles on all 100 wines or producers, here it is: [4]. Also, it might be a good starting point for drawing up a wish list to Santa Claus, in case you know a Santa who carries bottled liquids in his sack and has a very fat wallet. :-) Tomas e (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no Germans to recognize...--Symposiarch (talk) 15:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't check for that; they didn't even manage to squeeze in Egon Müller? I assume that the small production volumes "per wine" means that top German wines very seldomly are traded on the second-hand markets Liv-ex finds most of their data from (as opposed to wine auctions where smaller lots are also traded). I suppose that the only region with similarly fragmented vineyard designations & holdings where producers have made it onto the list is Burgundy. That still doesn't make three wineries in Category:Wineries of Germany a good coverage. One of the factors for the Liv-ex list is price, and I have sometimes seen people be quite surprised to see the prices the very top sweet wines (sometimes produced in 50 to 100 liter lots!) fetch in German wine auctions, since most people have heard that Château d'Yquem is supposed to be the world's most expensive sweet wine, which only is true if you restrict the comparison to wines produced in reasonably large quantities. Tomas e (talk) 15:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, you know Egon? I studied with him in Geisenheim, but he never sponsored some wine during our Diploma anniversaries...--Symposiarch (talk) 18:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Can't say I know the man (Egon IV is it?), but I've seen him at a few VDP events and know of his wines, which he's also poured at these occasions. While the wines are very, very good, their pricing make the likes of Fritz Haag, J. J. Prüm, Markus Molitor, Robert Weil and Schloss Johannisberg seem like very value-for-money-oriented producers. :-) Tomas e (talk) 18:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Nice initiative with the Liv-ex. Yes, we still have some way to go with covering producers but this is a useful direction to proceed.

I'm certainly hoping Santa isn't extremely preoccupied with the current financial mood but can't be too optimistic.. MURGH ^disc. 16:37, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Well Santa unfortunately didn't bring me any of these wines :( but he did bring me Investing in Liquid Assets: Uncorking Profits in Today's Global Wine Market by David Sokolin which makes frequent reference to the Liv-Ex. After the new year I may start diving into more of the wine-investment related articles like Investment grade wines, etc. Unfortunately winery articles are not my strong suit so I won't be much help there. :/ Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:20, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Petit Verdot in BC

I'm considering pouring a gifted bottle of Sandhill Petit Verdot, and was researching a bit about it before doing so, and was surprised to find

Aside from the countries below, Petit Verdot is used as 'seasoning' in Bordeaux-style blends in British Columbia...¹

Like the US, the Okanogan appellation is in a sweat for Bordeaux-influence blends, and the petit verdot is certainly being used similar to a spice in many cases. But it's also produced as at least one varietal since 2002. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.96.121 (talk) 00:09, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Do know of any reliable sources that we can use for the Petit Verdot article? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:24, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

New Years resolution for the Wine Project

It's News Years and the time to be optimistic and think big. My New Years resolution for the project will be to help work on getting the remaining 13 "Top Importance" wine articles up to at least B class. At a rate of 4 weeks per article, I might make it. I might not but it's a goal. What is your resolution "to do" list for this year? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

• American wine *Australian wine *Argentine wine *Burgundy wine *Cabernet Franc *Chianti *Grenache *Italian wine *Portuguese wine *Sangiovese *South African wine *Vitis vinifera *Winemaking