Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a wine guide

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• Excellent essay! Well written, good points. -- Steve.Moulding 15:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Vintages? 2 Examples? 3 Agree in principle... 4 A recurrent question 5 a few thoughts / queries 5.1 awards and recognition 5.2 Notability 5.3 Names and disambiguation 5.4 Categories 5.5 Wines versus wineries 5.6 Appellations 6 Irony, much? 7 Notability of Master of Wine and Master Sommeliers 8 Notability of Wineries - Part Deux

[edit] Vintages?

Regarding cutting vintage information: I'd say cut all or cut nothing (I'd vote for cut all). The whole process of deciding what to include and exclude could easily become subjective, messy, and controversial. Maybe you mention only those great vintages from more than 10 years ago. Why 10 years? Which great vintages? All of them? Those from 100 years ago? What about terrible vintages? Which references do you cite? How many references do you need? What does great mean anyway?

No, I'd rather cut vintage information from wiki pages and see discussions of greatness (and mediocrity) in my favorite book or wine-forum. Steve.Moulding 15:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I definitely think that section needs more expansion and discussion so we can get more clear consensus. I do think there is a difference between "historic" vintages and "great" vintages that could potential warrant inclusion. Like the 1970 Bordeaux vintage but that is mostly tied to their presence in the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 or maybe a year that saw some record sale broken. The spirit of "Wikipedia is not a wine guide is that we don't want people to see Wikipedia as a tool on picking which wine to drink and so a vintage needs to have some "historic" or "encyclopedic" significance beyond just being a good year to drink. Agne 20:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that if there are references for a vintage 10, 15, even 20+ after the fact for what ever reason in notable and verifiable sources, then there probably could be a reasonable argument made to include a mention of it. I'd like to see it avoided in almost all cases, but I do agree with Agne that there is something different between a "great" and a "historic" vintage. Just don't know how to put my finger on it right now. --- The Bethling^(Talk) 21:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Historic significance is an important point (not necessarily the only one). If a particular vintage is mentioned as great, say in a novel or some other non-specialist text, you ought to be able to cross-check in an encyclopedia whether there was really something special about it. Andrew Dalby 21:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I would be concern about the "mentioned in a novel" part falling into the realm of trivia which is a dicey area itself. Agne 09:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• I would like to see vintage port excluded from this. Port is typically sold non-vintage and only sold as a vintage in years that are declared to be great. It would hard to discuss port without referring to these years. Rmhermen 17:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I can see an exclusion for vintage port but probably for vintages that were almost universally declared vintage years by all the port houses. Just about every year is declared "vintage" by some port house but if there is a "consensus" so to speak then that might merit mention due to the rareness of that happening. But I would think mentioning that would probably be more relevant to the main Port wine or Vinho do Douro articles then the individual port house pages. Looking at the main Port article, I think the way that they are handling mention of vintages is fine. Agne 20:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• I agree that vinatages can be quite subjective and for the most part should be avoided for particular wines. Exceptions should be made for particularly notable vintages such as historically accepted great vintages (such as 1945). Other exceptions should be made when mentioning the vintage adds to the understanding of the appellation's history such as the 2002 floods in the Rhone valley and the 2003 European heat wave that caused the grapes to ripen excessivly early. Dancingredshoes 02:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's reasonable. I think the emerging consensus here is that our primary focus would be to avoid listing vintages unless there is something particularly unique and significant about that vintage apart from a critic thinking it is really good. Would others agree on this point? Agne 09:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I've fleshed out the Vintage portion to include examples about appropriate usages of vintages. The one area that I couldn't find an easy example for was the "Historic Vintages". My first thought was to mention the 1945 Chateau Petrus but that article's vintage area is not in the best of shape and I don't immediately have a reference at hand for the 1945 vintage to include. Any suggestions? Agne 21:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples?

What would be the best way to link "examples" of common mistake? We can't really link to the article because hopefully those mistakes would be soon fixed and not lasting for posterity. I suppose we could link to a diff version but I wouldn't want to give the impression of singling out an editor who may have innocently made that mistake. Another option would be "cut n paste" but that could get long and wordy with some of the examples. Any thoughts? Agne 20:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Agree in principle...

...so long as this doesn't deviate from existing Wikipedia practice (which it appears not to). One related issue, which might be of concern, are descriptions of the character of a wine (or the terroir of a region)--sometimes claims concerning these are highly speculative in nature. The main thing is to present verifiable fact as fact; consensus as consensus, and the opinion of a small group or individual as such--keeping in mind that the last of these is often not notable. --EngineerScotty

Excellent point. Any wine descriptions should be reliably source but even then we should be mindful of the subjective nature of even our source. Agne 09:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A recurrent question

How to find a complete list of all the articles belonging to the WikiProject Wine? In the project page, when you click on the Category link at the bottom (WikiProject Wine articles) you are taken to a list of talk pages belonging to the project articles, but not to the list of articles themselves. I find it very confusing. Thanks, AVM 23:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• The WikiProject Wine template can only be placed on a talk page. If you try placing one on the article page directly you'll see what I mean. Hence the set of talk pages. Sorry! Steve.Moulding 04:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• For a complete list of articles covered by the project you can have a look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Wine articles by quality and click on the subpages. Also note that project banner templates should only be placed on the talk page of articles so this is why the "Talk:" prefix is listed before all article names - this is by design and the same for all WikiProjects. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 04:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a few thoughts / queries

[edit] awards and recognition

I'm not sure what the purpose is of saying users shouldn't use Wikipedia to decide what to drink. Exactly what purpose would someone interested in wine have in learning about the subject to begin with? I do understand that we should avoid bias, advocacy, subjectivity, uninformative lists, etc.

With that in mind, I propose that it's okay to list truly noteworthy awards. Just like it's okay to list academy award nominations and golden globes for an actor -- just not every talent show they won. So if a wine award is truly important, say placing in the 1976 or 2006 judgment of paris, a 100 point Parker or Wine Spectator, or a major wine award (e.g. sweepstakes winner in SF), that ought to be said in a neutral tone. Just not every county fair bronze medal.

Probably shouldn't list the fact that the President drank something at a state dinner. With the exception of our current president, they drink a lot of wine.

Also, if you can cite an authoritative source to say that a particular wine is highly regarded, considered the premier or standard of its type, etc., I think that's worth saying. it might be fair to say that Chateau d'Yquem is the most widely known Sauternes if that happens to be true. Wikidemo 02:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In regards to "I'm not sure what the purpose is of saying users shouldn't use Wikipedia to decide what to drink.", I think the purpose is keenly tied into POV and the fact that Wikipedia is not meant to be essentially an advertising medium promoting a particular product or wine. There is a fine line between informing readers about the subject and recommending wine. Readers should expect to be informed but I think its key that we don't hold the expectation that our wine articles will tell you what to drink. I do agree that there should be some consideration of truly noteworthy awards and I think a fair definition of those noteworthy awards would be if the competition or magazine is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article. Most country/state fairs wouldn't qualify in that regards. Agne 08:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree, Wikipedia is not a review site. Rescendent 12:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Also its a bit misleading, if Wine Spectator gave a 1995 Shiraz a gold medal in 1997 is that really relevant in 2007; due to the nature of how wines change over time? or in 2018 etc. It might be notable that the vineyard received 10 gold medals so far from a notable publication; but that's hard to keep up to date information and would rapidly become wrong as well as possibly be misleading as to its current status (e.g. may have produced good wines in the past but doesn't now). Also it would lead to the conclusion that an award confers notability even if for no other reason is the vineyard notable Rescendent 12:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

Are all American wineries notable? My opinion is for the most part yes. Most have multiple articles from well regarded sources, they are widely known, their products are widely available regionally to worldwide. Given the goals of this project it would be a useful reference to have an article on most any winery. Is there an official position on what the notability standards are for a winery? Wikidemo 02:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to sit down and draw up some notability guidelines. I do think we'll need to give due credence to established notability guidelines like WP:CORP which would probably exclude a fair share of regional wineries. This could be where we have consideration about noteworthy awards play the largest part because those awards would be written up in non-trivial reliable sources and signify some degree of prominence within the industry. As a note on reliable sources, I do think we should make a distinction between a write up of tasting notes in a publication versus a full article about the winery. Considering the millions upon millions of tasting notes out there, I don't think they should stand alone as a reliable gauge of notability. Agne 09:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

As a winemaker at a very much non-notable winery, I think you're wrong about American Wineries. There are well over 5,000 wineries in the US. The vast majority of them are small, producing under 1,000 cases a year. Most of their wines are only available at the winery, or perhaps a few local restaurants/shops. If the winery penetrates beyond it's local market (for example, if the winery's in Washington and you can buy its wines in New York), then it's probably notable, but in that case it's most likely going to be covered by WP:CORP anyway. ---- The Bethling^(Talk) 09:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur. WP:CORP is a workable threshold for which wineries are likely to have enough verifiable, independent sources on which to base a high-quality article. If a winery can't meet at least one of those criteria, I would be very skeptical of the article. Rossami (talk) 23:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've started a bit on that section. Any thoughts? Agne 22:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Names and disambiguation

People are being sloppy with whether or not to add "winery," "wineries," "vineyard," "cellars," "vineyards," or whatever else to the end of the winery name, or "chateau" at the beginning. That causes conflicts with the people, towns, regions, etc., they're named after. It also means they don't come up consistently in searches. Wikidemo 02:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Could you give an example of château sloppiness? I'm working on cleaning up existing articles (consistent spellings, use of accents, layout etc.) but let me know what you have in mind. Thanks! Regards Steve.Moulding 03:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I second this request for example. I would say the WineProject is still in its infancy and so I'm sure there is a wide range of inconsistency across the board. I would encourage you to post some of these observation on the WP:WINE page so that the project members can keep tabs and work on improving this area. Agne 09:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

As in most of wikipedia categories are used inconsistently. Of all the California winery articles, maybe half are listed with the wine project, most of the rest with project California. Some with neither. It would be nice if someone could go back and add a consistent set of categories to all of them -- is that reasonable? Wikidemo 02:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Spent yesterday evening doing just that for the 1855 Châteaux, so I agree this is a good point! The categories there were all over the place. They should all be consistent now. If someone feels all of them need another category please add :-) Steve.Moulding 03:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wines versus wineries

Subtle difference, but is it more appropriate to make the article about the wine, the vineyard, the winery, or the company that produces it? In most cases I think the last case, even for wineries that are famous mostly for one thing (e.g. Silver Oak or Opus One cabernet, Chandon sparkling wine, etc). Or for companies that maintain two or more wineries (e.g. Ridge) or multiple vineyards. As a reference work, focusing on the winery gives the bigger picture and ties it into larger issues of winemaking, history, business, geography, etc. So it's more encyclopedia-like. Wikidemo 02:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• For Bordeaux articles (my focus) wiki articles are written Château-down...winery first, then the wines, techniques, awards. I agree, for an encyclopedia focus on the winery first, the wine it produces second. Steve.Moulding 03:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Appellations

Maybe vintages aren't crucial but appellations are. Very few of the appellation articles have been written, although there are comprehensive lists of them here. Wikidemo 02:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. Wikidemo, you have brought up a lot of excellent points. Thank you! Agne 09:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Irony, much?

"Wikipedia is not a wine guide is part of WikiProject Wine, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to wines" (e.m.) - heh. --Random832(tc) 15:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Ha ha, fair enough. How about Wikipedia is (not) a wine guide -- Steve.Moulding 16:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well actually the template should be better worded because I can see how the casual reader would be confuse. A wineguide is essentially a buying guide with detail reviews, tasting notes and recommendations on what wine to drink. A guide to wine is meant to be an introductory guide to the subject of wine, sort of like "Wine for Dummies" - Wikipedia style. There is a distinct difference between the two but I can see how it can get blurred. Agne 20:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of Master of Wine and Master Sommeliers

From a conversation on the Wine Project talk page. What are some thoughts about the notability of Masters of Wine like Igor Ryjenkov and Master Sommeliers? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 07:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of Wineries - Part Deux

Conversation originating from thread Articles for Deletion over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wine

• So what is the consensus, basically we keep articles ONLY about wineries that have something 'special', are first with something...., that will make most wineries non notable? Is e.g. Rosemount (wine) notable? I think so, but I can only justify it by saying that it is large and well known, not notable by wikipedia standard, maybe it it because I do not know its history, but lets for arguments sake say that there is nothing notable about it, it is not largest in its region, did not do anything first or anything special, BUT it is large and well know, would that make Rosemount non-notable and it should be deleted? If so I guess there is not much point in write random winery articles, I have at least one more article that should be deleted then ..... sigh.
• Reading WP:CORP again, does it mean that if there are magazine articles about a winery it can possibly be considered notable? Is my ref in the Rosemount (wine) article enough to substantiate notability as per WP:CORP? I do not think it meets WP:NOTWINE. anyone? Stefan 01:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Reply Well the "special" note is a vague and intentionally broad standard that allows inclusion of quite a bit. Your Rosemount example would pass the bar with flying colors. At the time, it didn't make a statement for notability but I updated the article with some of the relevant notes that establish notability-2nd highest selling Aussie brand in the US, one time largest family owned Australian winery, joint venture with Mondavi, etc. There is quite a bit that a winery can do to be notable. The bar is a rather low one. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Well, although the article doesn't make its notability obvious, Rosemount is certainly notable, magazine-wise I remember there being an article about its 20th anniversary in Wine Spectator. Although I don't know much about the winery (other than that I like its GSM :), a winery of that size has the potential of developing into a very thorough article. What I'm afraid of seeing is lots articles on smaller wineries that haven't done anything outside of being a winery notability wise. When it comes down to it, the typical winery is just a small business, no different than a local pizza shop or restaurant. It's known and important to its "local" community, but once you get out side that, it's mostly unknown. Some do get a reputation well beyond they're local area and those are the ones that are most likely able to pass WP:N. I see it as being similar for wines: if a winery has achieved a significant reputation then national/international press is likely to have noticed. --- The Bethling(Talk) 04:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply Good point (re: Pizza shop comparison). I think it is important to not lose sight that Wikipedia is not intended to be an catalog of every winery that happened to make wine. That would go against WP:NOT and certainly shouldn't be the focus of the wine project. Rather, we are embarking on an encyclopedic endeavor to record to collect knowledge and facts about the world of wine and its history. Of course we are going to have articles on wineries but there needs to be something particular that distinguishes it from your pizza parlor down the block. Obviously larger wineries have the benefit of non-trivial media coverage and international distribution but the smaller ones can also certainly be notable by those particular things that set them apart. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Agne, you are quite correct to separate this discussion from the one of prod deletions that I raised, and to move it here. I think you and others have done a good job in writing this essay. I suspect that the essay does need some tweaking because wineries are not like a Pizza shop. Even a small winery in Australia can have its wines on the shelves of a wine shop in London. This of course may not make it notable, but it certainly goes in that direction. The tweaking is probably about the type of sources. The essay recognises that wine may have a lot of sources but a lot of them do not lead to notability. --Bduke 09:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)