Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter

Welcome to the latest edition of the Wine Project Newsletter! Feedback is always welcome. Please consider dropping a comment on the Newsletter talk page to let us know how we improve future editions.

In this edition:

[edit] News & Notes

• New look for the Wine Project Page!

User:Scharks has worked his magic again. After setting up the Wine Portal with User:Charleenmerced, Scharks gave the Wine Project Home Page a new look with improved navigation links and more user-friendly interface. Now everything you need to know about the Wine Project is just a click away. Be sure to check out the page and let us know what you think!

• Every Wine Project article now assessed

We did it! Wine Project members accepted the challenge from our last newsletter to get every wine related article assessed by March 18th and accomplished that task with ease. We now have 990 articles with the wine project banner. Though with the assessments now done, there are some interesting insights to be gleamed.

--75% of Wine articles are currently stubs including 76 articles considered of HIGH importance to the Wine Project

--Of the 19 articles that are considered of TOP level importance, only 1 article Riesling, has achieved a quality level of GA or higher with 8 articles still being at Start Class.

--Less then 7% of all wine articles are even at B-class in quality

With this knowledge, it is clear that the focus of the Wine Project should be on improving the quality of our wine articles. In addition to such features as our Wine Improvement Drive, lets work on some broader goals for the project.

1. By the next newsletter (April 1st), lets convert at least 50 stubs to Start-class of better articles. Operation Stub-Killer. If everyone did their part this would be only 1 stub per wine project member. So chip in and take on at least one of the articles listed Category:Stub-Class Wine articles
2. With the 8 articles of Top Level Importance that are currently at Start Class-Bordeaux wine, Burgundy wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Chianti, French wine, Sauvignon blanc, and Sparkling wine-lets get at least 2 up to B level in quality. Bonus points if you take it up to GA!
3. Overall, let's try to achieve to an average of two Good Article designations a month. Since our last newsletter, two articles have achieved this designation-Carmenère (a previous WID-articles) and Christianity on alcohol.

• Recently passed Top Level Importance

California wine- Currently B class in quality

• New Australian Wine Infobox

User:Bduke has created the Template:Infobox Australian Winery to use on Australian wineries like Penfolds. Category:Wineries of Australia has quite a few Australian wineries that could use this new template. Consider lending Bduke a helping hand.

• New wine stub categories proposed

User:Bethling has proposed several new wine stub categories to make sorting some of our 744 stubs easier.

[edit] Wiki-Winos - Christopher Tanner, CCC

Forgive Christopher Tanner, for he has zinned

1 What got you first interested in wine?

• I went to the Brotherhood winery in the Hudson Valley region in New York when I was in eighth grade. At the time I had decided I wanted to write a paper for a class on becoming an oenologist.

2 What brought you to Wikipedia?

• I had read a book titled Zinfandel: A Grape and It's Wine by Charles Sullivan and wanted to see if the information from Agoston Haraszthy had been presented, especially on dispelling the myth of his bringing the Zinfandel grape to California first. It had not and it inspired me to begin editing pages.

3 What type of wine articles do you enjoy editing?

• Ive just begun, but I have worked on the Zinfandel article, Agoston Haraszthy as mentioned I plan on doing some research to support articles for individual wineries on Wikipedia.

4 What non-wine related activities do you also enjoy on Wikipedia?

• I've worked on a few professional culinary organization articles as well as professional cookery books.

5 What is your favorite wine? Least favorite wine?

• My favorite wines are some of the single vineyard selections from Ravenswood. My favorite was the 1994 Dickerson. It also happens to be the year I graduated from high school. The wine I buy more often than most though would be Veuve Cliquot NV Champagne, although I don't buy it a lot, it's always a mainstay at the table when I have guests. My least favorite in the past used to be Mouton Cadet, but it seemed to improve somewhat in recent years. I suppose my least favorite now would have to be the Pinot Noirs they attempt to make in New York.

6 What is the most under appreciated wine, in your opinion?

• I don't have a particular answer for this one, perhaps I believe I would've said wines from India, but they are starting to show up on shelves recently. I had a beautiful Pinot Noir made in India last year, so people should give them a try.

7 What efforts on a wine related article are you the most proud of to-date?

• The addition made to the Agoston Haraszthy article about dispelling the myth behind him.

8 Know any good wine jokes/quotes?

• Oh all those Zinfanatic words are always funny to me.

9 Have you ever had a "Wine snobbish" moment? If so, tell us about it.

• I try to personally be un-snobbish, otherwise it would be difficult to get people who are uninitiated to wine to enjoy it with those of us who have. I'm sure that there are people in general who find any intelligent wine drinker to be snobbish.

10 What area of the wine project would you like more editors to focus on?

• Individual wineries, as well as being less personal with their article writing. With encyclopedic articles, they should be about facts and not opinions which I find in allot of articles.

11 What are some wine related reliable sources (i.e. a wine book or web site) that you like using when editing wine articles?

• I read allot of academic wine books in general, but for reference texts I use Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia, The Oxford Wine Companion, Robert Parker's - Bordeaux, Robert Parker's - Burgundy, Hugh Johnson's - World Atlas of Wine, Hugh Johnson's - Modern Encyclopedia of Wine, Oz Clark's - New Wine Atlas. Robert Parker's website is also a good reference tool http://www.erobertparker.com/ if you have $100.00 a year to drop on the website subscription and then $70.00 a year for his magazine. I personally do not as I'm in Grad school, but I have used them both in the past for reference and they are excellent. This is another good site from Fine Wine Mag http://www.finewinemag.com/ as is the main stay WineSpectator.com which has some great wine classes on it for both the professional and amateur wine enthusiast.

12. What is your favorite non reference wine book?

• Champagne by Don & Petie Kladstrup I like a book that mixes the great parts of culture and the mundane as well into my favorite wine. Wine,war, espionage, monks and French culture all make for a great story.

Thanks to User:MIckStephenson for this beautiful view of a Languedoc vineyard set in the shadows of the Pyrenees

[edit] Wine Improvement Drive - Pinot Gris

User:Charleenmerced has suggested that we share some wiki-love on this white wine grape of a dozen names and a dozen different histories. The article is currently at Start level. We had another great success with last issue's WID article Languedoc wine taking the article from a stub to an article that the Wine Project is proud to submit for GA consideration. We had several new pictures uploaded for the article, including the gorgeous picture you see to the left.

[edit] Grab a bottle

Sometime during the next two weeks, Wine Project members are encouraged to grab a bottle of Pinot Grigio or Pinot Gris to enjoy and share your thoughts about it on the WID talk page. This will also present the perfect opportunity to take a picture of this wine in the glass for use in the article. If we have several photos submitted, we will take a vote among project members for which one is the best. Be sure to properly license and tag any photos that you upload with {{GFDL-no-disclaimers}} .