Talk:Commandaria

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Thanks for the great Commandaria article. I'm a little confused by what is meant by the "oldest named wine". My Oxford Companion to Wine says that Commandaria may be the oldest continuously produced wine, but there are many wines older than it that had names, although none exist today. Just curious which one you meant. Wnissen 17:48 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! Being Greek, seeing a Cypriot wine at the liquor store caught my eye, so I bought a bottle and noticed the claim of "oldest named wine" on it, so did some more research to find out its history. I believe their claim (one found on many sites on the web as well) is that it is the oldest named wine that is still produced, not that it's the first wine ever to have been given a name. Perhaps there's a better way of phrasing that?

-- Delirium 04:28 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I am a Cypriot and home-produce Commandaria or Commanderia(as I believe it should be). I might be wrong but the name I believe comes from the French commanderie and should be spelled commanderia. If I am wrong I apologise for editing this article, but I thought this is what Wikipedia is about. Doing some more research, Gran Commandarie was actually called Gran Commanderie, and therefore Commanderia is the proper name for the wine. Some producers name it Commandaria but it is probably wrong. Some users are too narrow minded to accept any other opinion, obviously. I would also like to complain about a user who called me a vandal for pointing this out. I find that this behaviour deters other users from contributing to this project.

I wouldnt call it vandalism. Spelling is notoriously variable throught history. Commandaria seems to me to be the most common spelling, so I would leave it like that, but you are welcome to add a note about variation etc. Justinc 09:30, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I am the user who thought the spelling change was vandalism. Sorry about that, I didn't realize that there was a question as to the spelling. The convention on the Wikipedia is to use the best-known English-language term, otherwise we would be changing all the references to Koymanδaρia, which would totally confuse everybody. The two most authoritative wine books I have, the Oxford Companion and the World Atlas of Wine, both use Commandaria, but then again they are both British. The latter even has a small picture of an admittedly hokey-looking label that uses the Commandaria spelling. Plus there are twice as many hits on Google for "commandaria wine" versus "commanderia wine," and a Google image search for commanderia turns up no pictures of bottles with Commanderia on the label. I'm certainly willing to use the "e" spelling if that's what's used in English, but I'm afraid I don't see any sources doing so. I apologize for thinking you were a vandal, and for using that word in the description. However, the worst sort of vandals on Wikipedia are the ones who change a single character in such a way that no one notices, causing an error that takes sharp eyes to fix. Since only the first appearance was changed the first time around, it really seemed that it was a deliberate error - spelling consistency is most important when there are several variants. I see that you later changed all occurences consistently, which is a good thing to do; in general one should also move the page to the correct title. I hope you will continue to contribute to the Wikipedia. Wnissen 13:48, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I am the user who likes the "e" version again. I understand your point now. I was just disturbed because I spend a lot of time in the Wikipedia pages (reading mostly) and the thought of being called a vandal in a place I really appreciate was frightening. I therefore apologise if I overreacted. On the spelling issue, I agree that most people spell it with an a but since the word came from the French Lusignan regiment and given that the word in French is commanderie I strongly believe it should be so. Actually about 1/3 of references to the name use the "e".Maybe then it would be best to add both spellings here?Also,Wnissen, I understand you are a wine lover.I once tasted a wine that I could not find ever since.I asked and was told it is rarely produced some years only in France.It was called Chateau la Ram. I would appreciate any advice on this.neoph1 20:16, 1 August 2005 (GMT+2)

I see you have made quite a few more edits to various pages; on behalf of the Wikipedia, thanks. The wine you are thinking of may be Château La Rame, which is a wine similar to Sauternes though not produced there. Their reserve is only made in good vintages. Google produces a number of hits, including this brief overview: [1] Wnissen 23:16, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

The 'a' version seems to make much more sense to me, because it is the name under which it's universally sold. There are two brands available at my local wine shop, both spelled "Commandaria". This also appears to be the dominant usage when googling. Nonetheless, I'm changing the intro to mention both variants. --Delirium 06:31, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for changing that. Wnissen 13:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Xynisteri

To my knowledge Xynisteri is a variety of white grapes, hence the deletion of red from the text. StephP 17:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)