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Archive 1←Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7→Archive 10

Operation Stub-killer 3

I know we've not killed all the High stubs yet, but just in case people fancied some quick kills or something other than regions, I started looking at the Mid stubs and sorting them. I was able to kill 30 or so that had stub tags removed from the article, but not from the WP box on the Talk page. Unfortunately they will get replaced by a whole load of AOCs and AVAs lurking in Low, but I try not to think about them :-)) Still, it gets us to 167, and 50 of those are Bordeaux crus classes and CBE's, leaving us with the following :

North American biogs (11) :

Adhemar de Chaunac, Andrea Immer, Bo Barrett, Bobby Koch, Charles F. Shaw, Frank Schoonmaker, George M. Taber, Harold Olmo, Mike Grgich, Thomas Volney Munson, Warren Winiarski

Rest of the World biogs (12) :

Abraham Izak Perold, Aubert de Villaine and Lalou Bize-Leroy, Christian Millau, Claude Moët, Christian Vanneque, Georges Duboeuf, Hermann Müller (Thurgau), Jancis Robinson, Len Evans (wine columnist), Max Schubert, Michael Broadbent

Vines and Winemaking (14) :

Bottle-shock, Charmat process, Fruit press, Lees (fermentation), Maceration (wine), Malolactic fermentation, Microoxygenation, Mistella, Süssreserve, Synthetic closure, Unoaked wine, Volatile acidity, Coulure, Millerandage

Misc (19) :

Academie du Vin, Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal, Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, Beerenauslese, Blind wine tasting, Champagne Riots, Cru Bourgeois, Cuvee, Garagistes, Grand cru, Indicazione Geografica Tipica, Table wine, Teinturier, Trockenbeerenauslese, Wine cellar, Wine lake, Wine Parkerization, Wine serving temperature, Wine Spectator, Wine tourism

Regions & Styles (21) :

Alsace AOC, Alsace Grand Cru AOC, Barbaresco, British wine, Brunello di Montalcino, Chablis Grand Cru AOC, Chablis Premier Cru AOC, Chalone AVA, Chambertin, Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC, Chinon, Constantia (wine), Côte Chalonnaise, Côte-Rôtie AOC, Côtes de Provence AOC, Côtes du Rhône AOC, Cretan wine, Frascati (wine), Hermitage AOC, Malaga (wine), Margaux AOC, Vin de Paille

Wineries (14) :

Cloudy Bay Vineyards, Château Musar, Columbia Winery, Constellation Brands, Deutz Geldermann, Eyrie Vineyards, Franzia, Gosset, Kendall-Jackson, Louis Roederer, Tahbilk, Taittinger family, Torbreck
FlagSteward 14:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how the bot determines activity on a section, but I thought I'd do something just to bump it, so I've split the people into North American and 'others' to make them more attractive as mini-projects - I certainly haven't heard of quite a few of the North Americans, and I suspect the reverse is true. FlagSteward 10:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

FYI

I'm going to be doing some traveling for the next three weeks and I'm not certain what kind of internet access I will have at the hotels that I'll be staying at. The newsletter and WID projects may go on hiatus unless till the end of May. Hopefully that won't be the case but just giving you all a heads up. AgneCheese/Wine 07:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Have a good trip Agne, send us a postcard, at least. mikaultalk 21:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Assessment log archive

I thought WP:WINE was taking rather long to load, and worked out it was almost 400kb, thanks to the assessment log being included, which contained a record of every change made during the stub assessment drive of early March. Just to ease things a bit I've offloaded 300kb of the older part of the log into Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Wine_articles_by_quality_log/Archive - it's all done manually, but I guess I'll remember to delete it at some point in three months time, as it would be if the bot was doing it. Whilst I think about it - scharks, is there any way of adding the new stub types to the template section on the home page?
I've got something to add to just about all the sections on this page, but I'm just back home and it's late.... FlagSteward 01:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been meaning to get to that :) Will have a look tonight. ◄scharks► 05:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Appellation mergers

As we get down into the Mid Stubs, we're going to be hitting a whole load of appellation articles, and I thought it might be worth a discussion of what the general approach is with these. My feeling is that if you have a well-known district, with lots of slightly obscure AOCs, then in general it's probably best to merge them into the main article - as long as there is an article of the form Xxxxxx AOC that redirects there. For instance it feels sensible to merge in Chablis Grand Cru AOC, Chablis Premier Cru AOC, and Petit Chablis into the main Chablis (wine) article. On the other hand if there's little benefit in doing that, the AOC article can stand as the main article. There also seems to be different approaches when it comes to geography articles that share their names with wines - given that we're en:wiki, I reckon that gives us rights to the main article name when it comes to something like Sancerre, where 95% of English usage will be referring to the wine, with a See Also Sancerre (commune) at the top. I suspect the Geography project might disagree. Also, do we really need to have both the town and the wine tagged as part of the Wine Project? My feeling is that we probably only need the wine, as long as the article contains a pointer to the town. I've no absolute views on all this, but I figured that it was worth an airing before we get stuck into all those Mid Stubs. FlagSteward 01:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I think we sometimes may need to tag the region as well. For example, I think both the Rioja region (this is just an example, because the Rioja region is not and should not be tagged since there is not enough info about wine in the article, I guess it should be in a case by case basis) and Rioja wines articles should be tagged. As long as the articles relates to wine, it should be tagged.--Charleenmerced Talk 14:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Languedoc wine page featured on Wine Blogging Wednesday

FYI, The podcast wine for newbies featured the information from our Languedoc wine article quite extensively for its podcast on Languedoc wine (which you can hear here). Take a listen. AgneCheese/Wine 07:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wine Library TV and Gary Vaynerchuk update

After two weeks with no comments/objections and most importantly no improvement to the Wine Library TV article, I went through with the merging to Gary Vaynerchuk. I did some clean up in regards to the trivia and some of the self referencing. I still don't feel 100% okay with some of the info left in, especially in the absence for more non-trivial independent reliable sources, but it is tolerable "policy wise" for now. AgneCheese/Wine 21:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Participants list/Project Activity/RfA endorsements

There is an interesting discussion going at WP:CANVASS about a proposed "adminship criteria" that would require an endorsement by a Wikiproject before some editors would support an RfA candidate. Part of the concern voiced by some editors is that this would encourage people to join Wiki projects for the wrong reason or just sign up for a project that they don't plan on participating with. I think that is a valid concern and it got me thinking about the overall activity of members on our Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/Participants list. How many members just sign their name to the list and then disappear?
In delivering the newsletter, I've already noticed a considerable amount of users who have had little or no activity with the project (or even Wikipedia) in several weeks (or months). I think part of the usage of a participant list is that if other editors have project related questions or would like input on some wine related content, they would have a list of editors who they can go to and get a reply. If the list if cluttered with dormant or inactive editors then it not really being the resource that it should be. Of course there is no obligation to joining any project and people can post whatever "project member" userboxes they want on their userpages, but I do think we should be concern about maintaining our project list as a directory of active members rather then a list of anybody who happen to stop by and sign their name.
With that, I'd like to propose that if an editor goes inactive from all of Wikipedia for 2 months or has not contributed to a wine related article in 3 months then we'll remove them from the project list. I think the time span is fair in that it accounts for real life, wiki-breaks and sabbaticals that may come and go. The wine related contribution doesn't have to be substantial content adding but can be anything from categories to clean up. Plus editors are always free to re-add themselves if they decide they want to become more active. What do you guys think? AgneCheese/Wine 07:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a valid criteria for retaining membership in the project. I had wondered myself how many people join and never really contribute and always wondered what the motivation might be. So I wholly support the time criteria you mentioned, I think it is more than adequate and generous, however there should be exceptions noted if people mention on the board that there is an extenuating circumstance.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 08:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I also think that it's important to note on the user's talk page if the project removed them from the list of active members. That way if they were to start editing wine articles again and/or come back to WP they'd know that they'd need to add themselves to the list again. -- The Bethling(Talk) 08:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Although there's some merit in keeping people on the distro list of the newsletter, just to remind them that we're here - particularly if they're getting it by email. So rather than deleting them completely, have some kind of list of 'zombie' members? I also think 2+3 months is a bit severe maybe - perhaps 4+6 ??? For instance I can imagine that someone with finals to prepare for should be taking a Wiki break of at least 2 months....... ;-/ ;-/ FlagSteward 10:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
A "zombie list" sounds like a good idea. It makes its easier to re-integrate yourself back into the group when activity is resumed.AgneCheese/Wine 07:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we need an {{undead}} tag ;O) mikaultalk 21:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Update: I went ahead and created Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/Inactive Participants and moved some members over. Admittedly, I did a cursory look at those who were obviously inactive. There are some editors who are fairly active Wikipedia wise but I'm not sure how active they are "wine project wise". In those cases, I didn't really dig through their contribution and rather err on the side of inclusion rather then remove them from the list. AgneCheese/Wine 22:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Just wanted to state here that I do not think this is a good idea and that I do not agree with it. The members of a wikiproject does not have any extra priviliges compared to non members, and I really question if a project should restrict itself and remove members (but then others have done so before), so in my opinion to list oneself on a project only means that you are interested in edition pages in the subject, it is not an obligation to do it nor gives you any extra rights. But nevermind if this is consensus in this project it does not matter much, even if I get kicked out I would like to get the news letter and I will check in here now and then and do whatever edits to wine related pages I have time for. If we really want to single out non active members, mark them in the list as non active, but do not remove them, not sure why we woudld like to do that? Stefan 14:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
reply Well it is not "kicking anyone out" but rather it is maintaining the Participants list as a reference tool for the Wikipedia community. If other editors have subject specific questions or issues, they typically go to the participant list of the relevant wikiproject unless they want to broadcast their question/issue on the project talk page. (I know I've done this many times and I've seen it done here). If the Participants list become cluttered with dormant or inactive members then it helps no one. If people go inactive they are still part of the project but they are just "categorized" differently. AgneCheese/Wine 17:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Taking a break from finals...I also have to disagree a little. A person may be inactive for a variety of reasons, come back one day and re-do an entire article and go back on hiatus again. I don't think that we should remove people form the list. Should be ask first on their talk page? And if they do not answer in a specified time (talking months here) then maybe they should be out. THe reason I say is because I understand why and how people may become inactive...family, finals, illness, got sick of Wikipedia for a while (it is very addictive after all), no nearby internet connection while they are abroad and many others. Some editors may not be doing much related to wine lately, but Wikipedia is quite big and the editor's attentions may be focused elsewhere at the moment. I have noticed that even though some editors are not active in the project pages are actually active in wine related articles. So, we should be careful as we go about this.--Charleenmerced Talk 15:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Reply I understand and intentionally made the span broad and "activity" a liberal definition. Three months is a long period of time to make one single edit to one single wine related article (fix a typo, add a category, wiki link something,etc ). As I said earlier, I sure didn't scrutinize this one very heavily and I know of two editors who only wine edit period in the last three months have been to edit their name on the Participants list. But being liberal in that definition they left on the active participants list. Once again, no one is being "kicked out". They are only being properly categorized as inactive. They are always free at their choice to readd their name to the active participants.AgneCheese/Wine 17:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I can definitively see the advantage of categorizing users as being active and inactive. I do think that maybe removing their names off the page onto a separate one might be a tad much. Maybe it would be better to create another section in the user list for inactive/watchers/whatever (I know other wikiprojects have something similar). Or just mark the inactive users in place in the list? --- The Bethling(Talk) 18:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I like Bethling's idea.--Charleenmerced Talk 18:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree, mark in list, do not remove. (as I stated this above). Stefan 00:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree as well Camw 02:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply Creating a separate section on the Participant page and having an separate page with a link on the participants page is essentially the same thing. AgneCheese/Wine 05:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Red Mountain AVA in autumn.
One wonders if you as a community aren't spending time managing the participants on your list that might better be spent writing articles. The reason given for doing so, that someone once suggested using participation in and/or nomination by a WikiProject as part of the basis for Administrator selection, is interesting. Those who have watched the Admin process for any period know that similar ideas are routinely proposed, that they come and go, and that that particular Wikiproject participation idea got minimal traction and died stillborn.
As a faithful wine drinker (medicinal doses only of course) and a periodic, albeit minor, wine article contributor, I’ve thought several times of adding my name. I’ve considered this when I see the notice that you, like most Wikiprojects, add to various talk pages to recruit more members. Knowing that I’m unlikely to absolutely positively contribute to wine articles every month, I elected to add my name to your inactive list (to save you the trouble of transferring me there in 60 days). I was intrigued to find you were so exclusive that my name can’t even be nominated as one of the inactive members; you truly do set high standards!
Here’s wishing you well on your efforts to recruit more members to write wine related articles. Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 11:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Reply Considering the wording of your entry "Last drink of wine on May 4th", I was assuming good faith that the edit was just a mistake or a tongue in cheek entry on the inactive list. There was one idea that I think Bethling allude to and I have seen on other projects-that of a "Watchers" category on the participants list. I'm not sure how well that will work but I was bold and created a section. We'll see what happens. AgneCheese/Wine 17:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Honestly, I am still not very comfortable with this division. I am involved in many projects that I am not as active on due to time, such as the Law project. Every once in a while I edit or add something, but not always. Still, I feel that when I do add something, once in a blue moon, it is valuable and depending on the topic I can add quite a bit. Thus, I don't like the idea of people being labeled as either active or inactive if they have not done anything on Wikipedia for a few months. Were it a year, that would be more understandable.--Charleenmerced Talk 17:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that "once in a blue moon" contributions are valuable as well as the many contributions that come from anon IP on non-project members. There is no special status awarded to anyone for being part of a project and there is no enhanced or decreased value that is attached to your edits because of. The participant list is simply a resource and the categorization of active/inactive members is simply maintenance of that list. I've seen projects who view their list as "bragging rights" and "look how many members we have" and let the list because one big name farm. What is the point in that? Then there are vibrant and active projects like WP:MILHIST who follow the same three month guideline and maintain quite a robust list. They have both active/inactive on the same page but I saw how big and cumbersome that page was so I simply moved the Wine Project one to a subpage. It still accomplishes the same point. Again, we should view our Participant list as a simply resource. As a project we get no benefit from a long "bragging list" of name filled with inactive and dormant members. We do, however, get benefit from maintaining the list as it becomes a key contact resource for wine related questions and issues. AgneCheese/Wine 17:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Operation Stub-killer 2

If anyone does feel like going stub hunting over Easter, these are the current High Priority stubs that aren't grapes :

Regions/styles (0)
Amarone, Austrian wine, Chablis (wine), Coonawarra, Côte de Beaune, Côte de Nuits, Egri Bikavér,Hungarian wine, Lebanese wine, New World wine, New York State wine, Rheinhessen, Ribera del Duero, Sancerre (wine), South African wine (now a Top Importance!), Vinho Verde, Vouvray (wine)
"the rest" (0)
Ampelography, Appellation (wine), Chaptalization, Charmat process, Château Cheval Blanc,Cult wines, Dessert wine, (Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Romanée Conti - I propose a merger), Globalization of wine, Qualitätswein mit Prädikat, Riddling,Süssreserve, Tignanello
FlagSteward 13:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I think Tignanello is best handled as a rename to Antinori or Marchesi Antinori, Antinori are too important to be without an article. I've suggested several mergers for the above stubs, and if Cheval Blanc is a High priority then so should Château Ausone. FlagSteward 15:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeay, I've just about killed "the rest" :-)))))))) The only matters outstanding are the future of Charmat, which depends on what happens with Sparkling wine/Champagne production - which is a Big Decision that I guess will get sorted in time - and Süssreserve. I was wondering if perhaps Bethling might take the latter, and Agne take Amarone as little projects to get to Start - I'm not talking another chaptalization :-)), a bit more hard info and some wikifying would get both of them there. In return, I know one of you mentioned that Hungarian wines was on your list to do, I'll make a start on that one over the weekend. At least with the regional articles you can just get on with writing the things rather than having to fuss about setting up merger discussions - but I figured that it was best to do the 'difficult' ones first and then coast into the regional stuff whilst discussions were ongoing.
  • Another thing - Dessert wine. This is another overview article which was really satisfying to do. It's not there yet, it needs a load of referencing and could do with some more info and more internal links. But it's got me thinking about how important that kind of "gateway" article is. Done right, they can really help casual readers 'get into' all the articles around here, as long as they don't bog down that casual reader, but rely on articles further down the hierarchy to fill in the detail. I've not thought it through yet, but one obvious conclusion is that overview and in particular country articles deserve more weight than I've given them - partly because it's much more fun writing about stuff you can drink :-)) Needs thinking about more. But in the meantime, please do all have a look at Dessert wine. FlagSteward 14:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
After pondering it some more, I can see the benefit in Champagne production being retitled to Sparkling wine production with charmat being merged in. I'm not sure if any one else has any further objections but I will drop mine. AgneCheese/Wine 10:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
As for Amarone. I'll see what I can do. :) AgneCheese/Wine 10:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, NWW will happen in the next few days, honest, I was so dosed up on codeine at the weekend that I was only fit for bits of 'mechanical' wikifying, not creating big articles. As you can see, I've lost Hermitage and Cd Rhone to the Mid category, as that's where most of the AOC's and AVA's are or should be - and I couldn't believe that Austrian wine was a Low stub, and Coonawarra a Mid stub. There's more that could be promoted, but I figured we can think about that once the current lot had been killed - it seemed fair to swap two articles each :-), even if a country article is a lot more work to kill. Having done Hungary, I quite fancy Austria as the next big one to tackle after NWW. FlagSteward 14:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Making progress - I've not been very well these last few days hence lack of progress on articles that need some thought, but NWW and Austria are my next big targets. But they're slowly ticking down - although I'm leaving Rheinhessen to last, as we actuallly need a major sort out of all the German regions. And having done the Coonawarra article, I did a link to the Google Map of the area, it's quite cool that the terra rossa is really obvious on the satellite picture :-) The Lebanon article is also now looking quite good, although I must admit that it could probably do with a copyedit, my brain really is a bit scrambled at the moment thanks to the drugs. Oh and thanks for the barnstar Agne :-)) - but I won't be happy til all those High Stubs have died...... FlagSteward 17:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, New World wine is now done, see what you think of it. IMO it now has a good structure as a 'gateway' article that could take it to GA and beyond.... It could do with more work, but I really want to get on with killing stubs, it would be fantastic to get them all done by the end of the month although I'm not sure I'll manage it on my own. I'll see how I get on with the smaller regions once I've got the last 'biggy' out of the way in the form of Austria. Still, progress of a sort, we would have got under 10 High Stub regions if it hadn't been for that pesky Ribera del Duero - it had better get to Start pronto, Mick FlagSteward 13:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, alright then... :o) mikaultalk 21:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Woohoo, the last of the 'biggies', Austrian wine is now done and looking pretty good - I can't believe it was a Low Stub until recently. Could do with a bit of 'hardening' of the references, and some photos of wine and vineyards, and perhaps another pair of eyes to copy edit it, but I reckon it's a 'good' B now, not far off GA. Which in turn has got me thinking about a few things - will post in a new section. Still looking touch and go whether I will manage to kill all the high stubs by the end of the month as per my original target, but it's really nice knowing that all the ones that are left should be the sort that can be knocked up into a Start pretty easily - just the foreign Wikipedias should get me most of the way there (well that's what I did with Vouvray :-) ) FlagSteward 16:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Ach, end of the month and it hasn't quite happened - but today I've hunted down all the other High Stubs not mentioned above so we really are down to those last 4 regional ones now. Should go in the next day or two, although Rheinhessen gets complicated as the German regions are really the start of 'what happens next', but the two Cotes shouldn't need much work. Frustrating getting so close to doing it by month end as I'd planned, if only I'd had the quiet Sunday to myself like I hoped for rather than the "start with receiving two 90-minute phone calls and downhill from there..." :-( Oh, and good work on the RdD article Mick :-) FlagSteward 23:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I now pronounce this thread officially dead Here's a comparison with how the assessment table looks now compared to the tableof 31st March :
Now Importance
Top High Mid Low Total
Quality
FA
A
GA 2 6 3 11
B 21 52 18 6 97
Start 8 95 170 74 347
Stub 183 523 706
Assessed 31 153 374 603 1161
Unassessed 0 0 0 0 0
Total 31 153 374 603 1161
31st March Importance
Top High Mid Low Total
Quality
FA
A
GA 1 5 1 7
B 11 36 15 4 66
Start 11 66 105 56 238
Stub 57 220 484 761
Assessed 23 164 341 544 1072
Unassessed 0 0 0 0 0
Total 23 164 341 544 1072


Obviously the big news is that High Stub square going from 57 to nothing, but there's been substantial progress elsewhere, stubs now represent a minority of the Mid articles, and a much greater proportion of the Tops are now B's. After the pressure of getting it done by the end of the month was lifted, I ended up doing a more leisurely job on the two Cotes, and will fill out the other big Burgundy regions in time.
Unfortunately I'm now going to spoil it by creating some new major stubs to help fill in our coverage of some of the major regions, but I still think it's a major achievement to have cleared out those existing High Stubs, and thanks to the others who helped with some of the articles, like Mick and Tanner-Christopher. I'd guess I must have sorted at least 50 though one way or another. I'll post some more considered thoughts on 'what happens next' next week - I'd better get on with doing the Newsletter ;-/ FlagSteward 22:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

WID targets

Rewriting Austrian wine from scratch into a fairly high B has got me thinking a bit about the direction of the WID. I found it pretty easy (albeit a fair amount of work) to get that article (plus [dessert wine]] and some other countries like Hungary and Lebanon) to a B standard on my own. What I find tough is going that extra mile to get it to GA - I find I need a source of photos, access to books I don't own, perhaps access to scientific papers, and as much as anything just extra pairs of eyes to copyedit and suggest things that have been left out. One person can do the broad strokes, but you need several to fill in the small gaps. So I'm wondering, now that the embarassment of having core articles as Stubs is behind us, whether the focus of the community effort on WID should switch more to polishing B articles up to GA standard, with individuals 'adopting' Top Start articles as private projects to get up to B standard. This of course would still be quite compatible with Agne's idea of WIDing a 'family' of articles together as with Bordeaux, although I think that was a particularly ambitious place to start! :-) It's also worth noting that we now have fewer Top Starts than Top B's, which is a bit of a landmark in the quality of the core articles. As I've said over on Talk:WID, on my theory of 'diagonals' it's just as important to get Top Starts to Top B as it is to get High Stubs to High Start, but that's not me volunteering to clear the Top Starts in the way that I've (almost) killed the High Stubs! FlagSteward 17:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I have to somewhat disagree with this. I think we have to still focus on Stubs since there are so many important stubs-articles that should be better. As a side project we can adopt a B or Start artcle for the week or something like that. But, the state of articles is not that great to just focus on the B and Start articles jsut yet. I suggest that the WID should still be used for Stubs or Starts and then a side project should go on for B-to- GA articles.--Charleenmerced Talk 22:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Well there is the "B-article" adoption. But I agree that we should keep WID to stubs and starts. The Bordeaux one is going "okay" but that is partly because off-wiki life is cutting into the overall activity of the project. AgneCheese/Wine 15:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not saying Stubs should be abandoned - but given that within a few days all the High Stubs will be dead, then our priorities start to change. Certainly in a world where the only stubs are Mid and Low priorities, stubs become irrelevant as the primary focus of a WID, we're not going to have the whole community spending two weeks sorting out Franzia or the Perold biog. As we come into the 'third diagonal' (sorry, it was Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Wine/Newsletter where I brought this up, not WID), then moving all the Tops to GA is as important as all the Highs to B and the Mid Stubs to Start. Of those, it will be a lot more challenging IMO to get the 30 GA's than the 90 B's or the 200 Starts. So the most difficult task should become our top priority.
    • I think we should set ourselves a challenge along the lines of "Get all the Top Articles to GA within a year".
I think that's probably quite an ambitious target, given how good the WP has been at getting GA's so far.... ;-/ And having written 7-8 major articles to B-ish standard in the last few weeks, I reckon I've a good feeling why. It's pretty easy as an individual to get an article up to 'bad B' standard, it gets exponentially harder to get it to 'high B' standard - and it's very, very hard for one individual to get these major articles up to GA standard (qv Chaptalisation?). As I mentioned above, it's partly a question of one person just having the resources - books, journals, photos, maps - and partly a simple need to have more eyeballs copyediting it. On the other hand groups -as might be organised by the WID - do have access to all those different resources and copyediting skills. I guess you could summarise it thus :
    • Individuals - OK at Start-> B, very bad at B -> GA
    • Groups - OK at Start-> B, good at B -> GA
Therefore it makes sense to concentrate our WID resources at the chokepoint, to make sure that the article really does make it over the line to GA, and rely on individuals to bring articles up to B to go into the pipeline - so adopt a Start, not a B. There's also the more practical matter that it makes sense to do the less ambitious GA's during the northern hemisphere summer, when more people are likely to away on holiday, doing exams, or just spending less time at the computer. If you're taking the long view that all 29 have to be GA'd at some point within the next year, then we should do the least (wo)manpower-intensive articles during May-September. And if that's not enough for people, there's no shortage of High Starts and Mid Stubs to be getting on with.... Hmm - this ended up being a bit longer than I expected, I was meaning to do a big 'what next' once the High stubs are finally dead. Few things have cropped up today that meant I did less than I hoped, so Monday might be looking iffy, there's a good chance of them being done Tuesday though - they're all 'easy' stubs left. FlagSteward 01:54, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm a bit busy IRL at the mo but feel my real forte here is in the polishing, copyediting, formatting and furnishing-with-images department. I love writing them but I'm short on paper-based ref material and find writing extra-time consuming as a result. B-busting is something I can do: I'd happily step in to help bring things up to GA (and take all the glory ;o)) as happened with Charleen's Carmenere page. When I have more time, I can get in earlier and collaborate, as happened with Tempranillo. Your Austrian wine page is great and would be easy to get to GA from where I'm sitting. Stubs-wise I can still help out (stub>start) - I've got some more Ribera del Duero stuff to add, btw! I'll do it later today, honest! - but overall I agree we should slightly refocus WID activity where it is shortly going to be seriously lacking (top starts) and already in motion (start>B>GA, even GA>FA?!) mikaultalk 13:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
That's a good example though - without access to paper references, you're going to struggle to 'finish off' a lot of my B's, cos that's one thing I'm particularly light on at the moment. So you need the cooperation of a second person with the bookshelf, which takes organising, which means something not unlike a WID....
As for what happens after getting the Tops to GA, I can accept that at that point you sacrifice a further drive for quality, and instead of driving them on to A class you first concentrate on getting the Highs to GA - GA-ness is such a fundamental part of the whole Wikipedia thing that it's particularly worth striving for. I think Charleen is rather dismissing what GA represents, Wikipedia is not just about bunging stuff in there, it's about having it in a readable form that can be verified. If we say that Merlot grapes are made into cheese and Caburniitt Soviggnon in Antartikka planted izz - that stuff gets propagated. GA gets rid of that, and fills in those odd little gaps like the ampelography of Chardonnay or the best conditions for growing Semillon (random, unchecked examples). Those kinds of details are just as important as basic information about some weird grape that's grown in one village in Turkey - it's worth saying again, I'm not saying getting to GA is more important than stubkilling, but getting Tops to GA is as important as killing Mid Stubs - but it is more difficult, and I reckon it will be the limiting factor in clearing the third diagonal. FlagSteward 23:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I still have to disagree with changing the focus of WID. I still think it should be focused on Stubs. The WP is full of stubs, it is mostly stubs. There are some articles that are pretty important, that are stubs, and should be improved. I suggest that we do a side porject to get B to GA. The main focus of at this point should be to add the msot information possible to articles and then later polish them. This way, we can form a more complete database for info on wine. Later, when there are a considerable less amount of stubs, we can focus all of our energy on B-to-GA articles. Ok, back to studying....--Charleenmerced Talk 15:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm still in the same camp as Charleen. However, I have no problem with a "Joint WID"-nominate one B article and one stub/start each week. Ideally they would have some theme like a stub class wine grape article that is well known in a particular b class wine region article. AgneCheese/Wine 15:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

American wine

Project Wikify has identified American wine as a page seriously in need of Wikification. Anyone here interested in taking a shot at it? Cheers - Williamborg (Bill) 20:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

  • This article ha sa pretty good history section. Maybe this should be our next WID?--Charleenmerced Talk 21:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Funnily enough, I'd been looking at that article only yesterday. Since It's All About The Diagonals™ boosting the Top Starts to Top B's was the obvious follow-on from my High Stubs project. Of the High Starts, US wine looked the most in need, but I had other things to do this w/e so my one for today was the rather easier Grenache. But I was planning a major wikify of US wine early next week if that's any help - in particular I thought it might be better if a European did the initial work, to steer the POV in the right direction. FWIW I actually don't think it's a great history section, it's unbalanced and far too detailed, much of it should go down the hierarchy to Californian wine. But I was aiming to have a go at all the Top Starts over the next week or two - we're down to 8 now, just a quarter of the total Tops. In fact a couple of the Top B's are probably more in need of work, I get lost reading them, but it's more important to sort out the Starts first. Now I really will get going on the Newsletter..... FlagSteward 23:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

New Category

I think we need to have a different category for vineyards than for wineries. While in some cases there is a great deal of overlap, in Burgandy and parts of the New World, this becomes an important distinction. This is not a naming question, there are wineries that have vineyard in the name, rather I want to draw out the distinction between the labels made from the DRC and the DRC property itself.--Mitamarine 21:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar proposal

It really is about time we had our own, don't you think? I've just proposed the one we discussed over at the Barnstar proposals page for etiquette's sake.. the whole proposal page is up for deletion, but I thought I should do it anyway and drum up support for it here. Is this unethical? Do I care? ;o) mikaultalk 12:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi Mick, I thought you were gonna change the corkscrew to a wine flass or bottle or something?--Charleenmerced Talk 15:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Hi! Well, I do remember offering to try, if enough people were interested in seeing it, and I did actually have a look at getting the barnstar to look convincing through a wine glass.. hands up - it was technically reaally tough and I basically gave in! I guess because it wasn't looking as 'believable' and because there was no further call for a glass-based one, I decided to fall back on the corkscrew idea. Ouch! Another good reason - it would have to be red or white wine; the corkscrew and bubbly cap covers all bases. So there. ;o) mikaultalk 17:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Can I just say that I'm not a fan of the green barnstar, even traditional brown would be better - although is it me or is it less violently green that it was? I don't know what you talked about before, I guess what would be really, really cool would be a barnstar-shaped wine glass with wine in it - I don't know if you could generate that by either morphing a photo of a wine glass into a star and then straightening out the level of the wine, or by using a barnstar as an alpha filter to 'punch out' a star shape from a glass (and then 'add' a stem). More easy perhaps might be to use a barnstar as an 'icecube' in a glass of wine - I'd guess it might work if you rotated the barnstar 20 degrees and then 'sandwiched' it between two copies of the same wineglass, the back one at say 40% transparency and the front one at 60% transparency - or maybe it'd look better with 50% and 70% or whatever. I'll mebbe have a play when I've got a moment. Another idea - how about applying a cork texture to the barnstar, or making the barnstar out of wine bottles or corks? FlagSteward 23:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Interesting ideas! I'm not sure anything involving glass will ever look convincing enough without originating it as CGI, which probably would look really cool but isn't really my thing. I recently saw a neat ray-traced illustration of a glass with a straw in it, nothing spectacular other than the total credibility of the refraction and reflection of the straw and liquid. Ok, so this is a small barnstar, but far from forgiving small errors, the size factor actually works against complexity - that's why I'm so inclined to keep it as simple as possible. Look at the existing barnstars and the worst are the most "fussy", the best the most simple. I quite like the cork barnstar idea for that reason, for example, but not the wine bottles: you'd never make out what it was at 150 pixels. FWIW, the green on the existing proposal represents the vine, the cap is for sparkling and the corkscrew for still wine: the one thing I don't like about it is that it has to be in three parts to cover all bases. Something I did half-try but never finished was with grapes (a white grape cluster draped over a ruby-coloured star) which either obscured the star too much or was too indistinct at 150px. I could post it up if you like and I'd also love to see what you can come up with, but I have to say you'll save hours of frustration if you don't try to do it with glass! mikaultalk 08:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm sorry to say this, but I really don't like that green color. And I liek the corks idea.--Charleenmerced Talk 15:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I could change the colour easy enough... any preferences? Had a look today at the grapes one again, it's just a bit dull, really. Cork on its own strikes me as being equally uninspiring :o/ Maybe I could try to get the green to "go cork" - what do you all think? mikaultalk 20:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Help needed! I've been fixing the red links in Spanish Wine Regions by translating/creating articles. I was going to start on "Calatayud" but a page already exists with that title, on the town itself, not the wine region. I've read the Disambiguation page but I'm kind of overwhelmed by all that info. Could someone help me out here? either by doing it for me (then I could go and look at the code) or exlpain (quickly and simply) how to do it? --BodegasAmbite 15:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC) PS. I hope this is the right place to ask these question :) I'm still finding my way arround!

    • Thanks for your help. I've added some content to Wine section of the Calatayud town page. I suppose this is OK for the time being, but in the future I think they should be disambiguated. --BodegasAmbite 12:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

WID again

That's an interesting discussion above on the priorities of the WID, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can participate actively too! I'm obviously still too new to WP, to be able to opine in a useful manner!

What I've done up to now is to fix the red links on the Spanish Wine Regions page by creating new articles by translating basic information from Spanish pages (the official DO page, WinesfromSpain, etc). Is this what is known as creating stubs? Any suggestions of what else I could do (given my newness in the Project)? --BodegasAmbite 12:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

One page or two?

As you (may) know, I've been creating stubs on Spanish Wine regions, and a dilemma has cropped up on what to do when the Spanish wine region has the same name as a town or a province or other area, for which an article already exists. Thers would appear to be two choices: 1) add a section to the already existing page with a subheading like "Wine" or "Denominación de Origen" or whatever, or 2) Disambiguate and create a new page for the Wine Region.

I personally would favour disambiguating for the following reasons:

  • Consistency. There are already disambiguated pages for Champagne and Cariñena, for example (and no doubt a whole lot more).
  • There is a big difference between an article on a town/province/region and a Denominación de Origen (or a DOC in Italy, AOC in France, etc). The former has a much broader scope (historical, political, social, turistic, military, economic, industrial, etc, etc...) whereas the DO is just wine related. The specific wine information (climate, history, grape varieties, wines, etc) would be lost in a general article. A wine region deserves a separate page!

I intend to work my way through all the Spanish DOs eventually. What I'll do is, do the regions where there is no article of the same name first, and by the time I've done them, no doubt, we'll have decided what to to do about the conflicting ones. To disambiguate or not to disambiguate, that is the question! --BodegasAmbite 19:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

    • Commendable intention, one I'd love to have the time to help with. Do the separate articles, is my opinion. Spanish DOs quite often derive their name from a town, province or comunidad but have quite different boundaries. The Penedès region, where I live, is quite a bit bigger than the Alt and Baix Penedès comarcas combined, for example. In my book there's enough in the geographical ambiguity to warrant the other page. We are supposed to be "killing" stubs at the moment and this won't help Mr Steward in the the stats department, but better the stubs than red links, or wine links to regional pages with hard-to-find wine info. Better still, dont just create a Stub, create a Start! mikaultalk 20:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok...I'll defer to the people that actually live in Spain...I just drink the wine. ;-)


OK great, two pages it is. And I'll try to make them Starts instead of Stubs - I wouldn't like to mess up those nice statistics or spoil the diagonals :). --BodegasAmbite 08:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Update!

If anyone cares...Even though this is not wine related (I'll make it wine related though!) I am writing this post to inform you all that I have 1 final left! Yay, Health law, that is the final I have left and in 24 hours I will be done (yay!). Also in about 36 or so hours I will be in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, where I was born and raised to visit my parents and have some real vacation time away from law school. While there, I will finally have time to edit all those wine articles I have been dying to edit. Sorry that my participation have been nil in the last 3 weeks, it has been crazy. So, (here is the wine related part) raise up a glass of your favorite wine and drink for me tonight, since I really shouldn't. And Chris Tanner, I will read your paper as soon as I'm done!--Charleenmerced Talk 01:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Best of luck. We've certainly missed you. :) AgneCheese/Wine 04:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I really wasn't going to open another bottle, but seeing as it's a special occasion... good luck and happy holidays, Charleen :o) mikaultalk 23:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Michael Broadbent

An article namely Michael Broadbent, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Broadbent. Thank you. - Kittybrewster (talk) 08:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

AfD removed, page saved. Stefan 14:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Spanish Wine Regions

Hi everyone,

I've been working my way through the red links in the Spanish Wine Regions, and creating articles (hopefully Starts, not Stubs - maybe someone could have a look at the articles I've created and confirm this). I'm quite happy to carry on doing this for the time being, while I learn the ropes :)

Here are a few thoughts that I've had, which would be nice to deal with, but am unable to do myself at the moment (cos I haven't learnt how to do it yet!). I don't think they're very urgent, but no harm done mentioning them now, no?

  • How about a template for Spanish Wine Regions? (ie, same section headings for all DOs)
  • Disambiguation (again). I think eventually we should decide what to call the article when the DO has the same name as a town/region/whatever. ie, should it be called "Placename Wine", "Placename DO", "Placename X" in order to distinguish it from "Placename". How is this done for other countries, like France, for example? (I'll check it out) Do we have to be consistent over all wine producing countries in the world? or just within each country?
  • I've learnt how to disambiguate in the case of only two conflicting pages (eg Calatayud (town) and Calatayud (DO) (wine region). Thanks mikaultalk! But what to do when there are more than two conflicting pages? Like in the case of Cariñena, for example!!! There are about 6 similar articles, some of which redirect. I think what we should do here (for Cariñena) is have a pure disambiguation page with no text (like for Champagne) with links to the different articles. At the moment we have "Cariñena,Aragon", "Cariñena" which redirects to "Carignane", "Carignan,Ardennes", "Carignano (Turin)", "Carignan" which disambiguates to "Carignan" (town in Quebec) and to "Carignane"; and in the Spanish wiki "Cariñena", "Campo de Cariñena" and "Uva Cariñena". I've written the text for the Cariñena DO but have no idea what to do with it!!!--BodegasAmbite 15:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Someone else might fill you in on the templates - there's certainly a Californian one which I used for Penedès if you want to check it out - I think there was talk of a generic one a while back... the same goes for the naming convention. Was that on this page? I really do have the worst memory :o/ As far as disambig pages goes, it's a bit tricky to set up a sep page. Just create your DO page as normal and worry about it later. When you get a minute, maybe have a look at this page. mikaultalk 22:36, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Help required for disambiguation

OK, I created a new page for the Spanish Wine Region "Calatayud" here Calatayud (DO) and moved the content from the Calatayud town page Calatayud. I've been reading the edit tips but can't find how to create the disambiguation page :( Could someone maybe explain to me how this is done. (I'll keep trying in the meantime!) --BodegasAmbite 14:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

There are some templates (with the boilerplate brackets) you can use listed on the WP:disambiguation page. Copy and paste all of the following bold text to the top of the town page: {{for|the Calatayud wine region|Calatayud (DO)}} and see what happens. You might want to do the opposite on the DO page, but I don't think it's obligatory. mikaultalk 00:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for that. Have inserted the link on the town page.--BodegasAmbite 13:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Back, for the most part

I'm back home, with steady internet connection, and will hopefully be able to resume my regular wiki activities. It will take a little while to get settled in so I won't be ready to resume the Newsletter project for this Sunday but if need be I can probably take care of it the next Sunday. Let me know what you folks would like. AgneCheese/Wine 04:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Revival

I notice a bit of lag in activity on wine articles lately and I suspect that off-wiki life is the primary reason. However I'm curious if there is any "on-wiki" issues that we might be able to address to stir up more interest and activities. A concern of myself is that maybe we started to overstep with the WID project (starting with the Bordeaux 3-article WID that got very little participation). The current WID, Cab Franc hasn't gotten much Wiki love either. What are some ideas that we can do to get things going back up and having fun? AgneCheese/Wine 19:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm right there with you, Agne! I've been slowly but surely creating Starts from the red links in the Spanish wine regions, but it's getting kinda boring! I think I'm ready for something else. (something else, in addition to that, i mean. I still intend to work my way through all those red links :). I can't think what to do to drum up some interest, though. --BodegasAmbite 19:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
End of semester catch-up has kept me from doing anything worthwhile. I would assume that a few people have gone on vacations as well. I will be back to editing more often this week as I'm back home from my travels. I do as well feel that many projects seem to have cycles of high and low interest. Other than the newsletter, I can not think of anything else you may try to drum up more interest.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 17:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there anyone else out there (apart from the 3 of us)? I don't see much wine activity going on (but then again, being new to wiki, I might not know where the action is!). Anyway, I have an idea of sorts: seeing as there are only 3 of us (or possibly a few more) active at this time, why don't we agree on something that we can work on together? For example, like taking an article up a notch, to its next category. I think it would be more fun to work together, no? Like I said before, it's getting a bit boring ploughing my way through those Spanish DOs!!! I would be glad of the opportunity to collaborate on something. Wacha all say? --BodegasAmbite 15:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
That might be an idea. Work is limiting my wiki time a little so admittedly I'm not as active as I could be. I was actually inspired by your Spanish DOs work that I wanted to start working on some of the Washington AVAs. However if there is something that anyone else wants a go at, I'm open to suggestions.AgneCheese/Wine 17:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, at present I am working more on German wikipedia projects, so I can't join the WID projects. Also the Mainz task force in wiki and real life is my priority.--Symposiarch 09:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Revival - Idea

I've just had an Idea! I was just contibuting to the Field Blend / Viticulture merger debate, when it came to me!

What if we all work on the Viticulture article and bring it up to at least a "B". There's loads of scope there and it could be a great article. (am open to other suggestions also) --BodegasAmbite 12:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Another take on stub-killing

I have an idea for another stub-killing type project. I recently took Red Mountain AVA up from a stub to B class and was able to get a WP:DYK out of it that appeared on the main page May 30th. Anytime we can get wine on a front page, it's good exposure for the project and the extra edits on the article from outside editors are almost always helpful and an improvement. (Hopefully we'll have another coming up with Augusta AVA) But this is also a great way to kill off a stub since it is less ambitious then trying to take the stub all the way up to GA class. The requirements for DYK are less strict and more attainable. I think we should shift our focus to looking at the articles in our Category:Wine stubs and the sub categories and work on moving those up to DYKs. There is so many articles to choose from that it should be easy for everyone to find something that piques their interest and under DYK rules you have 5 days to work on it and submit it for consideration. What do you guys think? AgneCheese/Wine 18:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


  • I think that's a great idea and I'll go for it. I'll read up on how to submit articles, etc and get to it :) --BodegasAmbite 09:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I've just seen that there are over 700 stubs!!! It's going to take us years to upgrade them all! (I still think it's a good idea though). Should we not set some kind of specific goals to aim for? It might be good for morale! --BodegasAmbite 10:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Lol, a few months ago we were closer to a 1000 stubs. Folks like Mick, FlagSteward and Charleen did a lot of work of upgrading a fair amount of those stubs to at least Start class. For the sake of DYK you don't have to take a stub all the way to a B class. It just has to have at least 1,500 charcters which is roughly a "High-Start" class articles with at least 2 sections. As a project, I do think we got a little overboard on stub killing and driving that number down (of which I'm partly to blame for taking us in that direction) so I am leery about putting any pressure on the project to focus on a number. I'd like to focus on the fun of getting wine articles to the front page and the sense of pride you get as a editor seeing it be features. Maybe a simple goal would be to try to get 5 DYK's a week? With us helping each other out that should be attainable.AgneCheese/Wine 22:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm up for helping out with some of the stubs. My knowledge is still pretty limited, but I'm sure I'd be able to research enough to at least get some articles out of stub class. Not to mention, I want to research. Part of the reason I got on this project was to help me learn more about my favorite drink. :) --132 14:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
And that is a fabulous reason to join! Welcome. I think we'll all be able to help each other out. I'm going to create a sub section below were we can list the article we are working on and ask any questions or get extra opinions. A key to getting a DYK is to have a "hook"-an interesting and unique fact about the subject that gets a person to say "oh!?". Like with the Augusta AVA, its a bit suprising to have an obscure wine region in Missouri be the first federally recognized American Viticultural Area instead of the more prominent regions like Napa Valley.AgneCheese/Wine 22:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

DYK subprojects and suggestion

Well a good starting point is Category:Stub-Class Wine articles but we also have more specialized categories for wine stubs such as... AgneCheese/Wine 23:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Study

Hi there! Please excuse the disturbance.

I'm a researcher who is conducting a study on social organization of Wikipedia. I'm looking for members of active WikiProjects to interview about their experiences on the site. I think the perspectives of Project Wine participants would be valuable to my study and I hope you will consider it! The interviews are usually pretty fun I think. If you are interested in volunteering for an interview, please submit the consent form linked below.

Here's the official information:

Participation is voluntary and can be discontinued at any time with no reason given. The interview can be as long or short as you like depending on how much you have to say, but we aim to keep it shorter than one hour.

If you are willing to be interviewed, please consent to participate in the study at: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg468i/webbasedconsentform.htm (This is a requirement of all academic research in the United States that involves human beings. If you are under 18, let me know, there is a different form.)

If you consent, I'll email you a toll-free number to call. Or I can call you if you prefer.

Thanks for your time! I hope to hear from you soon. Please contact me directly if you have any questions about participating at aforte@cc.gatech.edu. --Andicat 11:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

New New Zealand Stubs

Why have the latest New Zealand stubs been added to the Wine Project? The articles are about the towns and wine is only mentioned in passing if at all. Is this normal? I mean, that if we create stubs for every town in Spain/France/Italy/USA/etc that is in a wine-producing region we'd have thousands and thousands of stubs to deal with. Our stub-killing drive is going backwards here. (or am I missing something?) --BodegasAmbite 15:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Which articles are you referring to? In general, the wine project should focus more on the AVA/AOC/DOC/Wine region then particular towns unless the town is particularly significant (wine-wise) in its own right like Bordeaux or Porto. AgneCheese/Wine 18:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to the ones that were added on 1st June. If you go to the project page and scroll down to the Assessment Log section and click on "show" you can see a list of articles added each day. There are 9 New Zealand town stubs. --BodegasAmbite 20:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

So, any thoughts, anyone, on what to do about those New Zealand town stubs? or should they just be left there? --BodegasAmbite 10:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've removed the WineProject tags from three of the nine New Zealand stubs (Gisborne, New Zealand, Nelson, New Zealand and Waiheke Island) because wine is not even mentioned in the articles. I left the other six stubs alone because wine is mentioned in them in varying degrees (most just in passing and one actually has a separate wine section). Is that being bold, or what?  :) --BodegasAmbite 09:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to arrive so late to the party. It's unfortunate that they shop up directly as stubs in a head-count, but it accurately reflects their level of wine content (even if the articles are more or less fully fledged, but on the city, rather than the wine region). Some of the areas are sufficiently notable that they will justify their own article in time. Marlborough would be the most obvious, with an eventual article fleshing out region's role in developing NZ's style of Sauvignon blanc. I added them all, as I realised looking at Category:Wine regions of New Zealand that most NZ wine regions were not there, but a relatively non-notable sub-region was. I've been involved in some previous discussion where there's been some debate about whether project banners belong on such-and-such a topic, but as they go on talk pages rather than articles, the criteria for inclusion are somewhat lower. Waiheke Island produces New Zealand's most expensive (and exclusive wines), not that you would get that from the current text.
Anyway, all for being bold, but you also could have just asked me what the hell I thought I was doing! I'll try and behave and work up the content, but at the moment I should be marking exams.... --Limegreen 11:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
As a side note, there are very few internal links in the New Zealand wine article, partly because there is not content on places like Waiheke yet. --Limegreen 11:34, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm glad that the issue has been sorted out! Sorry for not asking what the hell you were doing - I'm still kind new here and I didn't know one could do that!!! Also, I know nothing about New Zealand wine so those names meant nothing to me, and I've been obssessed about the ever-increasing number of wine stubs!! Cheers! --BodegasAmbite 13:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

European wine article

Does anyone see a need for this article? I kinda do as a better description then "Old world wines". While there are clearly differences among Italian, French, German wine, etc there is a characteristics difference then some of the New World wine (which we do have an article on). I can also see the article giving benefit as a segway link to the other European region page and maybe contain a brief history of the development of wine making in Europe. Any other thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 18:59, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a much better name than "Old world wines", and probably a good portal for the Euro-growers, is my thinking. "Old world wines" should just redirect to "European wines", to solve the naming thing; maybe there should be a mention of it as a wine term at Old world, either that or there's already an Old World (disambiguation) page without a wine-related page to redirect to, which is clearly an omission. Good thinking, Agne! mikaultalk 22:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a strange title for an article to me! I can't imagine what the contents could be! Is there a fundamental difference between Old World wines and New World wines? (or between wines made in Europe and wines made elsewhere on the planet?) I would have thought that there's more diversity of wines within Europe itself than between Europe and the rest of the world! (I'm not saying you shouldn't write it!) --BodegasAmbite 09:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think there are differences, at least as a collective whole Old World compared to New World. Though I do believe any good article on the subject will note the diversity in every wine making area. I do think there are enough reliable sources to compose and article that makes notes on the general (or at least perceived) differences in style like how New World red wines tend to overemphasize oak and fruit while downplaying the terroir driven and earthier nature of European reds. In the "specialty wines" like port style and sparkling, there is a difference in general winemaking philosophy when it comes to aging. The typical New World sparkler spends 12-18 months on the lees while the great Champagnes can spend 5-10 agings. One styles wants to emphasize the fruit while the other wants to bring out the terroir and different layers of complexity. Additionally, as I noted, I think the article could also serve the benefit as a "leap pad" article that summarizes and links to the different European style articles like French wine, Spanish wine, Italian wine etc.AgneCheese/Wine 23:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Great! am looking forward to reading it!! (tho unfortunately I won't be able to contribute to it!). I didn't know about that difference - probably because I've hardly ever drunk a New World wine. Time to broaden my horizons I guess :) --BodegasAmbite 14:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

100 article barrier

I think someone deserves some congratulations! I see that over the weekend the number of "B" articles has passed the 100 mark! --BodegasAmbite 14:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes Congrats, I see Flag Steward has been out and about again. :) AgneCheese/Wine 17:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:American wine

Rmherman has created this awesome template that links all the US state wine articles. Take a look at it on articles like California wine. Obviously there is a lot of red links but this template is a great motivation to fill in some of those gaps. AgneCheese/Wine 00:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: Two red links have been eliminated so far with a new article on Texas wine up for DYK consideration and a stub article started on Hawaii wine. I've been solicitating the help of the various state-centric Wiki projects to help with this articles and I got a great response from some of the Texas project folks. Obviously some states are going to be harder to get above stub-class on some of the states but it's a worthy effort to try! AgneCheese/Wine 17:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Update We got Texas wine a DYK. Hawaii wine is proving a bit harder to find info though we got a semi-decent stub there. Now starting on Idaho wine which should turn out similar to Texzas wine in that Idaho has a surprisingly growing wine industry with more of their wines popping up on US and international shelves.AgneCheese/Wine 18:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Balti wine and Indian wine

The Balti wine article is up for AfD. Admittedly, I've never heard of it before so I'm going to do a little research and see what I can contribute to the article. I suspect that ultimately it would be better served merged as paragraph section into an article on Indian wine, which unfortunately doesn't exist at the moment. Any help in working on these two articles would be greatly appreciated. AgneCheese/Wine 18:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

As you later recognised Balti wine is not Indian. It is a British idea for drinking with Indian food. Since the tradition is that the lads go for a curry with a skin full of beer when the pub closes at 11.00 p.m., this may not be a good idea, but anything that civilises curry eating can't be bad -:) --Bduke 22:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, after more research I did realize it-though we still do need an Indian wine article. The Balti wine article is not one of monumental importance to the wine world but I think its sufficiently notable and helps an area of coverage that is sometimes affected by systematic bias. AgneCheese/Wine 06:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it is notable and interesting from a consumer-attitude angle. Wine seems to be slowly moving further into the mainstream "drinks market" (as opposed to a more "connoisseur"-oriented one) and this is a bit of a first in that respect. One of the website's own reviews described it as "quite unpleasant" (!) but the quality of the product should be no more a barrier to enc value than its apparent uniqueness: can you think of any other food-specific wine? What is a barrier is the article, which (or course) has a paucity of info, and because of it's uniqueness, comes over as spam, even though it seems to have been written by a long-standing contributor. I've just said as much on the AfD page but I'm really not sure what would be best for it – where would it go, if not on its own page? mikaultalk 12:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Snake River Valley AVA

I just created a very stubby article and linked it to Idaho articles. I placed the template on the talk page with a stub rating, but did not rate importance. The area designation was approved in March 2007. I will contact the WikiPRoject Oregon folks as well, since the designation includes two counties in Oregon. --Robbie Giles 17:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

EU-ropean wine article

There was some talk a while back about a Euro-wine article, to which this article might provide some relevant info. I thought I'd post a link to it here anyway, it's quite interesting in a "current trends" type of way. Or a complete horror story, depending which side of the Atlantic you're on ;o) also interesting a propos of Balti wine.. mikaultalk 08:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

oh where, oh where...

...has the newsletter gone? Did I miss the disbanding of that project function? Do we need someone to take it over? VanTucky (talk) 18:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, admittedly worklife got in the way so I fell out of the wine project loop. In the time being the projects general activity fell so I'm not sure if there is anything to write a newsletter about. If someone would like to resurrect it, by all means feel free. AgneCheese/Wine 20:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

What do you think of this article?

In looking for a Russian wine article I came across this article 2006 Russian ban of Moldovan and Georgian wines. It really is the first "newsy" type wine article I've seen. It is in dire need of clean up but I wanted to get other wine project members thoughts on it. AgneCheese/Wine 20:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Weird idea I'm kicking around

I've been thinking about doing a wine related podcast centered on the Wine Project here and our Wikipedia wine related articles. What gave me the idea was the current Wikipedia Weekly podcast] that talks about news and notes around the project as well as seeing other podcasts and blogs like wine for newbies and Robin Nixon use material from this site. I suppose it would be a sort of evolution from the newsletter but open to anyone that wants to download and listen. If I go through with this, I would obviously love the collaboration of other wine project members. What do you guys think about it? AgneCheese/Wine 05:33, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Taking off for the summer

Hi, everyone. Just a quick note to say that I'll be taking off for a whole month (August) and that I won't have time to finish off the Spanish wine region (Denominación de Origen) articles, before I go, but I'll carry on with them when I get back in September. --BodegasAmbite 08:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Activity

Hello everyone, so who is still active? I am in a bit of a hiatus due to my summer job.--Charleenmerced Talk 15:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm still out and about. Currently working on the Viticulture article and List of Vineyard soil Types.AgneCheese/Wine 18:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Me too, but I've been more active with my photographic interests lately. I'm still vigilant on the recent winey edits and keep dipping into the Spanish wine articles as and when they pop into my sights. I've been out and about though; just returned from a fact-finding mission in Cantabria, where wine-making has recently been revived following many decades of decline and neglect. From what I can gather, there's only one active bodega in the whole of the Picos but wow, what a nice wine!
It's holiday time, I guess everyone's on a break of some kind, although I've not seen very much of a few of the old regulars for quite a while.. always nice to see you two still about :o) mikaultalk 19:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Balti wine

An outside view would be appreciated. I got involved with this article through AfD and at the time it was clearly an advertisement. Now I don't think anyone here would accuse me of blind inclusionism or being sympathetic to advert articles but after researching the matter I found some notable significance in the uncharted realm of curry Food and wine matching and worked to rewrite and save the article. There is an editor who has so far exclusively edited articles in relation to Balti wine. He seems insistent on wanting to put in a section on Balti competitors with the companies own website as reference and the text essentially amounting to "Company A is a competitor of Company B." I certainly don't want to get into an editor war so I'm taking a step back. Any outside views (Whatever you maybe believe) is welcomed. AgneCheese/Wine 19:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Reviving the WID - Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC

Anyone interested in another collaborative improvement article? I was surfing around and noticed the poor shape that the Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC article is in. I figure let's make it a Wine Improvement Drive article and see what can kind of article we can churn out.AgneCheese/Wine 17:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey Agne, long time no wiki. I still feel a bit bad about abandoning that last newsletter when you were on holiday - some 'stuff' happened and I had to go away at short notice, it was all I could do to finish the newsletter. I've signed myself up for Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser - you might want to as well, I think it might make distributing the newsletter a bit easier, which in turn might stimulate some more activity around here.
Been some big news in the wine world recently, what with the Pinot noir genome being sequenced and everything - a prompt to spend some time on the botany and phytochemistry of Vitis? Since I wasn't feeling very inspired about the Top priority Vitis vinifera, I've asked the guys in the WP:Plants project for a bit of help on the various species articles - the Vitis article at least has been 'botanised' although it's still a bit of a mess - I ended up shifting a whole lot of stuff in from Grape which needs to focus just on the fruit of the genus I feel, to keep it distinct from the best-known species and the genus as a whole. Every one of those three articles should be at least a GA - and they're the sort of article that should be reasonably easy to get up to FA if someone wanted to, given the amount of published information. I guess what we could do with is a student from Davis or somewhere who has to do that kind of thing anyway :-)) Actually scrub that, for Vitis you'd be better with someone from the east coast for the North American species and perhaps Wagga Wagga for the Asian ones. But the Vitis/vinifera/grape group would be a great target for a WID, and I'd encourage people to have a butcher's at them anyhow.
There's a new version of the VIVC website at [1] - they've not ironed out all the bugs yet, but when they do I've some ideas for nicking some of their stuff :-)) The acreages of each grape ("Area by Country") is a bit erratic and out of date, but it's a useful 'backstop' data source if you can't find anything better.
Stuff I've been doing of late - recently had a bit of time so have been spending it hoovering up some red links, particularly on some of the obscure French grapes, and will try and do some German ones too, our coverage of Germany is shameful. At least I've now got the Gewurz / Traminer story going in the right direction - has anyone seen some good scientific papers on Gewurz being a musqué mutant of Traminer? I'm sure the Germans are wrong about them being the same thing, but need to prove it :-) On the same note, anyone seen any analysis of the various Traminer-like grapes in central Europe? I have a feeling that they're all clones rather than identical (and found one paper finding small differences in Savagnin and Traminer, which isn't surprising) but again, I've no references. It's an interesting area though. I guess a useful page would be one for all the common mutants - musqué, gris, blanc, 4N and oh, there's another one I'm thinking of - which will hopefully get filled in as the genome is analysed.
Back in June I made a start on the South African WO's, and I've also got my eye on the Chilean DO's - fortunately there's not too many of those :-)) - but on further reflection I thought we need more discussion of name formats for appellations before doing these seriously.(see #Appellations below) In the meantime, there's always stubs to kill, and there's lots of grapes without articles....
I see we're now over 200 Mid Starts, and 20 Mid B's, which is a minor landmark. FlagSteward 16:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Get your cameras out!!

I figured it was worth a reminder to Wikiwinos in the Northern Hemisphere, now is the time to get out into any local vineyards and start taking photos!! Particularly of any weird local varieties. Even better if you can get along to your national collections of vines, if they allow visitors - unfortunately Montpellier doesn't unless you're part of an organised group. It's meant to be a very early harvest in parts of Europe this year, so you might want to get a move on. OTOH I think any photos of English grapes taken this year will be only good for illustrating the mildew articles :-(( - it's been a shocking summer here.... Talking of pics, I found a great photo of Duras from de:Benutzer:BerndtF, it's good enough to be used to illustrate more general articles about grapes and wine. I told you I'd been looking at obscure varieties :-)) I imagine that there's some way of tracking down all BerndtF's photos, he's got a few on his homepage that might be useful for Bordeaux fans (and a nice one showing champagne lees before degorgement). FlagSteward 16:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Mosel wine of interest to WikiProject Wine?

Since the change of name on Aug 1, 2007 Mosel-Saar-Ruwer correctly redirects to Mosel wine. However, judging from Talk:Mosel_wine, only Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany is interested in Mosel wines (and not particularly interested, since it is classed as a low-interest article), which seems a little odd to me. Perhaps something has been lost from the Talk page in the name change? Personally, I would rate Mosel as high-importance, but since I'm a new contributor to this language edition of Wikipedia, I think it would be better if someone else adds/recreates the appropriate article classification. Tomas e 16:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that the situation for Rheingau is the same as for Mosel, so the name-change for Mosel probably wasn't to blame... Tomas e 01:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Our coverage of Germany in general is in a pretty shocking state - of all the articles to expand at 'region' level, it's top of my list. So it's probably just noone has got round to adding those articles to the Wine Project yet - you can do it, just add a simple {{wine}} to the Talk page and someone will be along to rate it, or if you want to rate it yourself use {{wine|class=Stub|importance=High|needs-photo=yes}} or whatever is appropriate. As a rough guide, for a major country like Germany, the 13 regions will be Highs, the Bereiche will be Mids, the Großlagen either Mid or Low depending on notability, and indidual wineries/brands/vineyards will be Lows - but any of those will go up one category if there's something really notable about them or if they're particularly famous in the English-speaking world. But yes, I was definitely planning to do something about the German region articles soon, at least when I get back from a trip abroad. And don't worry, there's definitely some of us with a soft spot for German wine - see the last Newsletter :-))
Incidentally, it's pretty universally known as Moselle in English - even the German Tourist Board uses that form. So it needs renaming to Moselle wine in any case. FlagSteward 01:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I added the templates to Talk:Mosel wine and Talk:Rheingau; I was generous enough to consider the former as Start rather than Stub. Rheingau now is Rheingau (historical/administrave region) rather than Rheingau (wine-growing region), so I suppose that Rheingau wine would be needed as a new article. While not a native English speaker, I'm not so sure about Mosel wine --> Moselle wine for the German wine-growing region. Oxford Companion to Wine (2006) uses Mosel as the main name form for the river (and the region was still Mosel-Saar-Ruwer). and there would also be the need to differentiate between the German wine region, the Luxembourg one ("AOC" Vins Moselle Luxembourgeoise) and the small VDQS Moselle in France. I could see Moselle wine as being a disambiguation page between those three, with the German region remaining Mosel wine. Tomas e 14:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah - that's a fair point of view, I've got some bottles from west of the border myself, and I guess now that MSR has been dropped, you might see more use of the plain 'Mosel'. I'm not that fussed either way, I jut thought I'd note the traditional usage in English. FlagSteward 09:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and Drink

As we are all part of the same project in essence, I was wondering if the members here would like to receive the monthly newsletter I send out to the members of the WikiProject Food and Drink. --Chef Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 06:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Appellations (2)

Excellent summary, FlagSteward. I've been worried/obsessed/at-a-loss over this issue since I started contributing to the Wine Project back in May 2007. I think (or rather I'm afraid) that I'm responsible for about 90% of the Spanish Denominaciones de Origen articles which are here: [[2]]. Unfortunately, I haven't been too consistent, even having limited myself to the Spanish DO's :(

Partly, this was due to the fact that I was new to Wikipedia and didn't know about disambiguation, redirects, etc (and in fact I still have doubts!). In general, most of the Spanish articles are in the format 'Somewhere DO', but sometimes I put 'Somewhere (DO)' and there are also a few horrible entries (like 'Denominacion de Origen de Toro') which I don't know how to fix. When the name of the DO coincides with the name of a town (like 'Valdepeñas') I put a redirect in the town article to the wine article 'Vadepeñas (DO)'. I only did it this way because it was as far as my technical editing skills allowed! I didn't follow any criteria, as expounded above by FlagSteward. --BodegasAmbite 15:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as my own personal preference is concerned, I think that Somewhere DO, or Somewhere AOC, or Somewhere DOC, etc is the most natural way of writing it (as opposed to DO Somewhere, AOC Somewhere, etc).

With that particular example, it would just be a question of using the Move function at the top of the page to take it to DO de Toro or de Toro DO, whatever format we ended up with. And you can use the same Move thing to sort out any inconsistencies with brackets too, like I say we want to end up with a situation where in any case each appellation article has a couple of 'standard format' redirects pointing to it. You certainly right that for the Spanish-speaking countries, Somewhere DO is overwhelmingly the most 'natural' form. But we have to think about a) whether it's 'cleverer' to use DO Somewhere for sorting purposes and b) other appellations which in English get put before or after the place. I'd guess AOC is the most common one for being put in front of the name, but even then its probably no more than 50:50. And as BA is probably now realising, it would be nice to sort this out before setting up a load of articles, rather than having to sort out the mess after the event.FlagSteward 09:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it's all very complicated! and a lot of thought is required! Unfortunately I just don't have the time to contribute to this issue at the moment. I'm right in the middle of the grape harvests at the moment and my life is hectic (to say the least)! BTW, and this is totally off topic, but I'm going to tell you all anyway, 'cos my brain is not functioning properly at the moment (probably a temporary harvest-related condition!) but anyway, this year we've experimented in making a 'beaujolais nouveau' type wine, ie by 'carbonic maceration' (is that what it's called in English?) and so far it's turning out really well. Hooray!!! Well, sorry for that outburst! --BodegasAmbite 12:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Carbonic maceration it is - surely you should know by now that Wiki has the answer.... Sounds like you've just volunteered to expand that article, it's pretty stubby but at least you can make photos of the process. ;-/ Yeah - I know, grape juice looks pretty much like grape juice whatever it's doing, but it's the thought that counts. What's the marketing angle? Are you going for a nouveau-style release or leaving it until the spring.? FlagSteward 01:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Spanish Wine Regions

Hi all, Just a quick note to say that I'm back from summer holidays and have access to a computer in order to carry on with creating articles for the Spanish Wine Regions (only about 10 DO's to go). Unfortunately, the vendimia (grape harvest) has started so I'm going to be very very busy and wont be able to do so anytime soon! I will definitely write those articles though, even though it's going to take longer than expected! Salud, Cheers and nash-starovie! --BodegasAmbite 13:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget to keep taking photos of grapes :-) FlagSteward 09:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Will do! though I only have red Tempranillo and white Airén which are already in the respective articles!--BodegasAmbite 12:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not seeing anything on Airén..... FlagSteward 01:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Administrator

I know you guys haven't heard from me in a while but I just wanted to let everyone know on here that I have applied to be an administrator. I have been working extensively on the Wikiproject Food and Drink which is the parent project to this one. I believe if I am nominated to become such I will be able to greater serve this project when people have issues as-well-as when I see issues as I still watch a large amount of the articles in this project. If you are an administrator and would like to support or oppose my nomination please stop by Requests for adminship/Tanner-Christopher.--Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 21:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Go for it - we could do with a couple of admins who understand wine, particularly if we've got some sorting out to do on things like appellations. Be good if people like Agne would become admins too. FlagSteward 09:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
LOL, you're the third person this month who has mentioned that. It's a nice compliment but I fret that adminship would cut even more into my dwindling Wiki time. There is so much more I'd like to see accomplished with the Wine Project before I would want to assist the project in other areas. But thank you again for the nice words. AgneCheese/Wine 19:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Agne, I would fully support your admin. application. Like myself I don't think it would take away from your time with this project, it would only add to it. The issue is that what I found is that you need to show an excess of time in admin areas such as AFD and warning vandals and posting them on the admin. board for blocking. If we had more of us though in the food and wine area that were admin.s we could better regulate the projects instead of seeking out others from the outside who do not understand our genre.--Chef Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 06:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Admittedly so far I haven't really encountered much here that we would seem to need an admin attention. Possibly the AfDs and speedy deletions but, on some level, a wine project admin would probably need to recuse themselves due to a conflict of interest and just offer their advice to an impartial third party admin. Honestly though, I think in those cases a respected long term editor's voice would probably have just as much weight of which I think the Wine Project is in good shape in that regard. As for myself, again I appreciate the nice words but I just don't feel the inclination towards it. I apologize that I didn't get an opportunity to vote in your RfA but after reading the responses I just have to shake my head. I don't think RfA truly vets its candidates on the important qualities and instead makes some rather arbitrary benchmarks. There was clear consensus that you had the qualities of a good admin but yet you didn't pass some personal litmus test and that is unfortunate because it looks like some of the folks that do end up passing these litmus test don't end having the temperament and other intangible qualities that make up being a good admin. Its a very skewed system but I had good faith that we'll see you as an admin soon enough Chris. :) AgneCheese/Wine 06:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh...hey, BTW I just noticed that User:Bduke is an admin. So there you go. We have at least one wine knowledgeable admin in the fold. :) AgneCheese/Wine 06:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and I am happy to help. However on Thursday I fly to London where I will not be too active on Wikipedia until I get home on October 20th. I hope to sample some good French wines for a change rather than good Australian wines. The choice in London is fantastic. The choice here is almost entirely Australian or New Zealand with others difficult to get and expensive. --Bduke 06:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Ooooh, I'm jealous. :) Best wishes on the trip. Let us know if you come up a good find. AgneCheese/Wine 08:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough - I just figured that we're coming up to a time when we might need an admin on hand to clean out some of the crud that's accumulated around the edges of the Project (BTW admins - I've found two examples over on the Food project), and it helps to have someone who's got some awareness of the issues behind what might seem minor changes. For instance I tried to get Silvaner moved to Sylvaner, and just had people throw German Ghits back at me, sigh. Have a good trip Bduke - will be popping in to London on Thursday myself, as long as the trains behave themselves :-))) This post is brought to you by a Vermentino from Sardinia.... FlagSteward 01:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

AVA naming discussion

There is a discussion going on at Talk:Yadkin Valley wine region about moving the title to Yadkin Valley AVA. There is a broader discussion about Wikipedia standards for naming AVAs that I would love to get a wider range of input on from other Wine Project members. AgneCheese/Wine 19:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Similarly, we may want to consider putting in some move request and tidying up some of the entries in Category:American Viticultural Areas. AgneCheese/Wine 19:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Just as a comment - that kind of thing was exactly what I was trying to get at with the "Appellations" stuff above - and this kind of thing should be discussed at a Project level rather than hidden away on a minor AVA Talk page, but whatever.....:-) FlagSteward 01:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Peter Lehmann

This article has been proposed for speedy deletion. I have removed the tag as the article has been around for many years. Speedy deletion is inappropriate. Maybe it will go to AfD now. Peter Lehmann is very important in Australian wine. The article needs work, but I am unable to help as I am about to fly to London for a while and will have no time to work on WP. --Bduke 11:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look at see what I can do. AgneCheese/Wine 00:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Great. I have added some material and also removed a prod deletion notice. I really do not have time for more. --Bduke 00:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Nice one - good work. FlagSteward 01:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Activity levels

I would like to apologize to the wine project members for my sporadic activity the last few months. Off-wiki life and health has taken it toll. However, the start of October will herald a new start which will give me ample time to increase my contribution. Plus in December I will be going to Tucson to take the Level 1 Sommelier certification (The first step to eventually getting a Masters of Wine hopefully in the next 30 years :p). I consider work on the Wine Project to be the perfect refresher course to prepare for the test. AgneCheese/Wine 19:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about the health thing - but since noone else has said it, can I just say you should never have to apologise to anyone for not doing stuff here - if it ever feels like an obligation, then it's time to take a break. Or just do something else - I've been doing some assessments on the Food project as a complete break from writing articles, although I've still got my eye on getting those 6 Tops up to B, and finishing off the WO's, and sorting out Germany, and then maybe starting more AOCs, and then....... FlagSteward 01:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Nah, it's not any feeling of obligation but I do see us all as a sort of "Team" and I think it is fair to apologize for not being as active of a team member as I hope. That's all. :) AgneCheese/Wine 02:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Vegan wine, Organic wine, Natural wine and Kosher wine

I'd like to get some thoughts on these three articles. Recently an editor added Vegan wine to the Template:Wines "Wine style" category. My first instinct was that this style is not notable or distinguished enough to be included in the same lines of thought as Sparkling wines, Fortified wines etc but I held off on removing it so that we can get a wider discussion on the topic. I can see some merit for inclusion but it would be under the same merit that we would include the Organic, Natural or Kosher wine articles. I'm sure there is similarly other "specialty wines" that could be listed as well which can quickly overwhelm the template. I have thoughts about creating a semi-disambiguation Specialty wines article that would like these types of wine that could then be a single link on the template. Any thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 19:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that they are not "wine styles", since it is the use or non-use of certain vine growing and wine making practices that set these wines apart, not the style of the finished product. My thought about these, as well as at least Biodynamic wines, is that they are some sort of "special classifications". Often there will be some organization (or religious body) that will "award" the classification. I'm not sure if a separate disambiguation article is really needed - perhaps it would be better to assemble short descriptions of these wines under an appropriate heading in the wine article? (And just as a remark, I'm not too happy about the present state of affair where "classification" both includes official classifications and general wine styles.) Tomas e 19:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
For the main Wine article that is fine but what inclusion, if any, should these wines have in the Wine navigation template? AgneCheese/Wine 19:33, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
PS, I agree with you on the classification part in the main wine article. That article is a bit of a bear and needs a lot of work overall. It's just a bit daunting for only one or two people to take on. AgneCheese/Wine 19:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I think I would prefer no inclusion at all, but if they have to go somewhere it would be at the bottom ("see also") rather than top. By the way, the whole template isn't exactly a favourite of mine. The terminology "notable varietals" isn't very appropriate. Cabernet Sauvignon is a very notable variety also when it is blended into a, say, AOC Pauillac rather than made into a varietal and varietally-labelled wine... By the way, returning to the original subject, perhaps wine with Fairtrade certification (Fairtrade wine?) should also be mentioned somewhere? It doesn't seem to have an article at the moment. Tomas e 19:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree that organic, natural, kosher, biodynamic, etc. don't belong on the template. If they are included in a template, they might fit in a "grape-farming" category, but that also doesn't belong in a wine template, because these classifications of farming styles apply also to raisins, commercial dextrose production, and any other grape products. -Amatulic 20:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I'll fifth (or whatever it is) dropping Vegan from the template - it's not a wine style as such, the sort of thing you could identify on blind tasting. Perhaps there's scope for a 'niche marketing' article or something - it's the sort of thing that's quite fashionable in exams these days I believe :-)) Specialty wines I'm not so sure about as a name, as that makes me think of stuff like vin jaune and other oddities that have been around for centuries before any MBA's were awarded. And I think there's some kind of distinction to be made between what happens in the vineyard (biodynamics etc) and what happens in the winery, although I guess organic is now more of a marketing label than a reality on the ground (hmm - pet subject that, keep me away from it ;-/). But I'm not convinced that even a jump-off article in that area needs to be on the template. I'd also agree that the template needs Work with a capital W. One perspective would be to start off by only having Top articles on the template - might focus our minds a bit on what should be Top, as an aside I can't believe that Portuguese wine is still waiting for two more votes for top when it's a top 10 by volume country with two internationally in vinho verde and port. Interesting that so far it's the Europeans who have supported it and those across the pond who've opposed it. FlagSteward 01:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't forget Madeira, once upon a time as much copied/forged as Port, if not more, and in its day it actually had a lot of its market "over there". I hadn't voted for any top articles because I didn't want to add to "inflation", but if Cab Franc is rated top, Portugese wine definitely belongs there too. Tomas e 09:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Update Well given consensus from this discussion I went ahead and removed Vegan wine from the Template and also the recent addition of Bum wine. However another user reinserted Bum wine. To further add interest, Bum wine has been prodded for deletion. While Bum wine's notability is marginal and subject for its own debate, I don't think it belongs in the template and I echo FlagSteward's sentiment that the template over all needs some work. I think I'll start a new section belows on our templates in general. AgneCheese/Wine 02:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

See also? I added them to see also; delete if necessary. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 06:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Appellations

  • In what follows, any reference to "AOC" is an example that should be assumed to refer equally to WO, AVA, DO, DOCG etc

I figured it's worth sorting out some kind of consistent approach to appellation names, given that setting up appellations is one of the Next Big Jobs for most countries (not just France). As I see it there's two main areas for inconsistency :

  • The tension between place names and the wine they produce. Unfortunately there's no 'easy' way to resolve this one, as some wines have entered the English language and are far more famous than the hamlets they come from. For instance, if English speaking people type Volnay into Wikipedia, most would expect to see an article about the wine, with a {{for}} tag at the top pointing them to Volnay, Côte-d'Or and Volnay, Sarthe. It shouldn't be a disambig page if >90% of English speakers are going to click on the same link to the wine. And with villages there's a "natural" alternative article name, in the form of Village, département, which saves us having to faff with alternative name structures for the wine (see next point).
On the other hand you'll get a major town like Beaune where you'd probably expect to find the town at the basic article and the wine at Beaune AOC or something. Sometimes the wine gets mentioned in the town article, sometimes there's a separate article. In principle I feel there always ought to be a separate article for the appellation. And every place article should have a paragraph entitled ==Wine==, which contains a {{main}} tag pointing at the appellation article (unless the latter is a redirect of course). In the cases where the appellation exists but there's not a lot to be said about the wine (Vienna maybe?) then the appellation article should still exist, but just as a redirect to the Wine section of the town article. Sometimes you see town articles with grape production lumped under "Industry" or "Agriculture" - I think if the wine is significant enough to deserve an appellation, then we should try to ensure there's a specific Wine section to deep-link to.
To further confuse things there are a handful of really big names like Burgundy, where the place article {{main}} link will be to Burgundy wine, which is an AOC in itself but has lots more AOC's linked to it. There's not too many of those so it should be manageable, but it brings us on to another point :
  • Place AOC vs Place (AOC) vs Place AC vs Place vs Place A.O.C vs Place (A.O.C) vs Place wine vs Place (wine) vs AOC Place
I think I've seen all these variants around the place, and there's arguments for several of them :
    • Somewhere AOC - seems to be the most common, and 'natural' variant, at least in France
    • Somewhere A.O.C. - More common usage for some appellations, like Chilean D.O.'s
    • AOC Somewhere - good as it collects them together in sorted lists
    • Somewhere AC - Only a problem for French AOC's, but AC without the 'O' is more often seen on bottles in the real world
    • Somewhere (AOC) - allows wikilinks to use the [[Somewhere (AOC)|]] structure to hide the AOC
    • Somewhere (wine) - likewise. There's also a few places that have separate AOC's for wine and something else
    • Somewhere wine - another 'natural' option, and already used for country articles and big regions regardless of whether there's an appellation
In general I think the fewer 'standards' we have the better - but within those standards we need to be consistent by the provision of redirects from each 'standard' name to the main article. We already have "Somewhere wine" as a standard for country articles and big regions, and that is the 'natural' option for some of the other regions which happen to be appellations, such as Alsace wine. I would be minded to continue that down to some of the 'famous' smaller regions such as Chablis and Chinon, the sort that one might see generic references to on a supermarket shelf in the English-speaking world.
Personally I think I would prefer the standard article name to be "AOC Somewhere". Once you 'know' that's the structure, it's no less convenient than "Somewhere AOC", and it has the advantage of collecting them together in sorts. A disadvantage is that outside France I get the impression that DO's and WO's for instance are seldom used before the appellation name - and as for Germany..... ;-/ Any views on that? Would the advantage of self-sorting outweigh the slight unnaturalness? I suspect this one is going to fall into two camps, the "top-down" ones that regularly use lists of articles, and the "bottom-up" people who want to use the most natural format, but having "Somewhere AOC" as a redirect will allow 'natural' usage to end up at the right article while retaining the sort advantages.
Redirects - Regardless of whether the main article ends up at, I think there should be redirects for "Somewhere AOC", and "Somewhere (wine)" for every article, those two cover most of the wishlist. If someone's feeling keen they can do the (AOC), A.O.C., (A.O.C.) and AC variants as redirects too. ;-/
  • Summary - I think what I'm proposing is :
    • 1) Somewhere - for famous villages and small districts, unless there's a conflict
    • 2) Somewhere wine - famous regions where 'natural' in English, and countries
    • 3) AOC Somewhere - for every appellation, but if article named as 1) or 2) then AOC Somewhere redirects there
    • 4) Somewhere AOC and Somewhere (wine) always set up as redirects to the main article, whether it's named as 1), 2) or 3)
    • 5) Any existing articles that don't fit the above template to be moved so that they do

What are other people's views? It would be nice to have a consistent format across all countries, but I'm not obsessive about that, we could cope with having one or two exceptions for AOC's or AVA's or Großlagen or WO's or whatever. I understand that this is a fundamental issue that needs to be debated in depth, but it needs to be sorted out before we create many more appellation articles (from all countries). So I'll let this one stew for a few weeks, before I start playing with AWB and create some articles ;-/ FlagSteward 16:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I think "AOC Somewhere" is completely wrong. The fact that France puts adjectives after nouns has nothing to do with how English works. And it has the disadvantage of keeping them out of alphabetical order - especially when sorting (like Wikitable sortable). Rmhermen 19:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Ummm - it's nothing to do with French adjectives. For one thing AOC names aren't adjectives, otherwise it would be AOC Bourguignon rather than AOC Bourgogne. And using the AOC first is not at all unusual in English - to take the first example that popped into my head, Berry Bros use that format. I'll grant that it is less usual to see some of the other appellations use that format, but then we get on to the 'ease of sorting' issue. My preference (not set in stone) is to have it so that the appellations sort together, so that you might get :
  • AOC Aardvark
  • AOC Penguin
  • AVA Diamond
  • AVA Ruby
  • WO Banana
  • WO Orange

rather than Aardvark AOC, Banana WO, Diamond AVA, Orange WO, Penguin AOC, Ruby AVA. That's just my feeling - I recognise that there are also times where mixing appellations up with everything else may also be helpful, just appellation-first is more helpful. FlagSteward 16:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC) Just bumping this - surely some of the regulars must have an opinion on this? As for where I've been lately - let's just say that some wine articles might be getting some new photos :-) FlagSteward 09:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

For those reading this in the Archive, BodegasAmbite replied in the Appellations (2) thread FlagSteward 18:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
  • $0.02 I think, for the most part, we should follow the natural variant with paying due attention to how the average reader is going to stumble upon these names--through a bottle of wine, a wine book or magazine. For instance, for American Viticultural Areas it is almost always spoke of as [name] AVA like Walla Walla AVA, Augusta AVA, etc. In nearly every wine book that I've come across the French AOC are listed as [name] AOC. Also thinking in terms of categories, it looks much cleaner with the place name before the AOC. AgneCheese/Wine 02:23, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Many of the issues you mention Agne could be settled by redirects, but it looks like people don't think the sorting thing matters and we're settling on Somewhere AOC (although ) for those areas not famous enough to have a 'natural' name in style 1) or 2). What I do think is important is the consistency of having Somewhere (wine) and AOC set up as redirects so that as you're writing you can link to an article without having to think about it :-))) - a bit more work to set up, but with long-term payback.
  • Summary - So we now look to be going for :
    • 1) Somewhere - for famous villages and small districts, unless there's a conflict
    • 2) Somewhere wine - famous regions where 'natural' in English, and countries
    • 3) Somewhere AOC - (no punctuation) for every appellation, but if article named as 1) or 2) then Somewhere AOC redirects there
    • 4) Somewhere (wine) always set up as redirect to the main article, whether it's named as 1), 2) or 3)
    • 5) Any existing articles that don't fit the above template to be moved so that they do

Just for the record, I think some people are a bit keen to use the Somewhere AOC style when 1) or 2) would be more appropriate - for many of the big names of French wine at least, 1) is the "English" meaning of the name, no matter what the people running the French commune Wikiproject say :-)))) So I would encourage people to use the 1) style instead of Somewhere AOC for the genuinely notable areas or where there's no ambiguity with a place name (Crémant de Jura etc) - and there will be a redirect at Somewhere AOC in any case. I think I'll probably make the AOC's, WO's and Chilean DO's my next "big" project, although I need a break after my assessment marathon on our parent Project - probably time to do some writing, kill some stubs before sorting out the AOC's.FlagSteward 18:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Wine Template(s)

I think as a project we need to really look at the usefulness and efficiency of our templates, including our main Template:Wine. Looking at the history of the template you can see that quite a range of people have different ideas of what should and should not be included in the template. I think part of the reason is that it is so big and encompassing and the term "notable" is very vague and obviously subject to personal opinion. While I have faith that we could possibly come to agreement on the varietals, I think it would be hopelessly difficult to narrow down the "notable regions". The See Also section also becomes a catch all. Below is an idea that I would like the project to consider. AgneCheese/Wine 02:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Split this template into three templates 1.) Grape/Varietal to be added to grape articles. 2.) Region/wine style to be added to 3.) Wine General to include a lot of the stuff currently in the "See also" section including the links to List of grape varieties and List of wine-producing regions. This template would be used on pages that don't already fall under the Grape/Varietal or Region/wine style template.
Wouldn't the templates 1 & 2 also need to choose notable varities and regions? Or was the idea that more varities/regions would fit into their own templates, and thus make the selection easier? If so, I would support this. Tomas e 21:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
For the most part, yes, I do think it would be easier to select "notable" varieties and regions if they were their own template because it would less of a massive construct sitting at the bottom of the article. Right now the template just seems very unmanageable. AgneCheese/Wine 22:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually I think it's pretty easy - define "Notable enough for the Template" as "Top importance articles" - period. That way we get 30-odd articles on a single Template, which is manageable, and provide a link to a general Link. So for instance you'd have "Grape Varieties: Chardonnay....Sangiovese (more)" and so on for regions/countries and 'misc'. If you wanted a separate varieties template (which on balance I think I'm somewhat against), you'd do the same down to the High articles, or even Mid. FlagSteward 19:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
That's a tremendous idea! AgneCheese/Wine 04:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
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