Talk:French wine

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"the typical French person drank local wine and, although proud of France's reputation for making some of the world's outstanding wines, knew relatively little about them"

Why is this phrase in wikipedia ? It's like if i was writing "Typical American is obese, cannot place Europe on a map and eats Mac Donald every day"

Contents 1 I'm thinking about to start vandalising American pages... 2 Largest Production? 3 Rallying the Troops 4 POV 5 Relevant French wine article up for deletion 6 Bourgogne 7 Attribution note 8 Introduction of article 9 Paris in the Atlantic? 10 Thoughts on getting this article up to a B 11 Fair use rationale for Image:Logo-vigneron Thmb.jpg 12 à la propriété

[edit] I'm thinking about to start vandalising American pages...

I'm growing pretty tired of the obvious vandalism that permeates all the France-related articles. If you tiresome, whining Americans don't have something better to do than to vandalise wikipedian pages please just sod off! I removed the links, because both of them was very critical towards the French wine industry and is an ill disguised POV...

BTW- Our wine industry in Canada has been doing great in recent competitions. See the St. Catharines Wine Tasting of 2005 and the Ottawa Wine Tasting of 2005.Ted Howell 15:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ottawa Wine Tasting of 2005 article has been deleted Steve.Moulding 20:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW- tasters at The St. Catharines Wine Tasting of 2005 were all Canadian and included writers for Canadian wine magazines, professors and students at the local University, and 8 members of the Ontario wine industry(!). Nothing against Canadian wine, but this trumpeting of the results of this (minor) tasting needs to be kept in perspective. Steve.Moulding 20:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Largest Production?

I have always heard that Italy produced the most wine in the world, often in the context of it being underappreciated outside Italy! See here for example, although those figures are from 1998 and show Italy just slightly ahead and Italian production decining faster than French. I've heard mentioned that France produces the most 'quality' wine in the world, whatever that means, presumably wine over a certain base price threshold. Maybe the most wine in bottles rather than Tetrapak :-) -- Blorg 19:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rallying the Troops

Having browsed around the French Wine entries in Wikipedia, I have to say that in general, the representation of French wine here is in a shambles. Far from wishing only to complain, I plan on adding what I can. There's certainly a lot to be done. Is anyone else interested in rallying a concerted effort to make the entries on French Wine full and informative? --BridgeBurner 19:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

It is my view that much of French wine is infected with a negative POV. There is much talk of the problems facing French wine here and elsewhere which are very real and germane. However, not only are the problems listed in a much larger volume compared to any other type of information, but they are often accompanies with a promotion of some other type of wine. There are also written in an extremely sweeping assumptive language as if the editor knows what a large population wants or needs. The more I delve into this, the more I assume a vested interest by the editor(s) involved. It seems that there are few editors present in Wikipedia that care enough about French wine to promote an unbiased viewpoint, so it seems these edits have been allowed to infiltrate almost every level. I appeal to the editor(s) in question to define their motivation to further a pretty bald bias. --BridgeBurner 18:44, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. It is infected and attempts to promote some wines. This occurs in several articles. Are grape varieties that important for the consumer? In here the trend is the wine region followed by brand. And most wines mix different grape varieties. --Pedro 14:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC

Dear BridgeBurner- Please see the message I left on your talk page several days ago. In the meantime, I'm workiing on a general wine competitions page. Best regards.David Justin

I wonder about our current statistic that American importation of wine from France dropped 50% in 2003. I had previously read that this "boycott" was largely a fabrication of anti-French individuals like Bill O'Reilly and that there was little or no discernable impact on the economy.64.12.116.6 10:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Negative POV, indeed: "...it's becoming increasingly difficult for French producers to compete internationally, and in traditional French fashion, they are beginning to surrender." Perhaps the article would be better off without this cheap crack at the French. --Benwk 13:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the biased vandalism.Cloudy Bay 18:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relevant French wine article up for deletion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Problems in the French Wine Industry has been put up for deletion. A potential outcome could be a request to merge the relevant information into this article so any input (or improvements) that could be given from the editors of this article would be appreciated. Agne 20:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bourgogne

This is an English-language entry so one should use Burgundy.

[edit] Attribution note

Some of the content in the Organizations section is from the merged article L'Office national interprofessionnel des vins. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction of article

I'm quite unhappy with the way the article starts right now. This is an article on French wine, not about the history of French wine. While the history is quite interesting, the first 9 lines of the article (in my browser) are only about history; they would belong better in a history section. Tomas e (talk) 20:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprise there is not already a history section, heck I'm surprise we don't have a History of French wine article already. But I agree with your assessment that the lead needs some reworking. While it should include a brief summary of history about France's first vineyards and monumental events like phylloxera, at the bare minimum the lead should include comments on where France ranks in world production (sort of like the current third paragraph but it is a little inaccurate since Italy surpasses Frances in some years) and a overview of the major wine regions as well as a brief touch on the concept of terroir. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 22:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paris in the Atlantic?

My geography is a bit sketchy, but I seem to remember that Paris is somewhere inland on the Seine. However, I was surprised to see on the wine map that it is now a huge island off the West coast of France. On a serious note it seems unnecessary as Paris doesn't itself produce wine that the 'island' can be removed from the map. If of course someone has moved Paris please ignore this. Macgruder (talk) 09:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a Paris, Texas, so why not a Paris, Atlantic? :-) On a more serious note, the magnification of the Paris area, set to the left of the French mainland is obviously quite irrelevant to a map of French wine regions. I replaced it with another, much less cluttered and more stylized map. Tomas e (talk) 02:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts on getting this article up to a B

Here are some thoughts on ways to get this article up to a B class:

• Referencing. While not horrendous, there are a couple section and several important claims that need referencing.
• The Lead section could use some editorial discretion in accordance to WP:LEAD. While a lot of wine articles have the opposite problem of not having enough of a summary, this one actually has too much and several details that are not found in the rest of the article.
• The history section is missing ALOT of important detail. It is not bad considering that until a few weeks ago, this article didn't have a history section at all. In the long run there problem should be a History of French wine article with this section serving as a summary. In the meantime though, a B class article would have a more well developed history section.
• There could be more details and summary about the Vin de Pays system, especially since those wines are developing more of an emerging presence on the world's wine market.
• Wine Regions-This area has certainly been improved in the last few weeks but I think the "Big 6" regions (Bordeaux, Loire, Burgundy, Alsace, Champagne, Rhone---maybe Languedoc & Provence) should probably have at least a paragraph summary leading into their main articles. It is hard to truly be an overview of "French wine" without providing some summary about these regions.
• Trends section seems awfully OR. Ideally it should be referencing and merged into the history section as part of "Modern day"
• Wine styles. Currently it is merged into a grape variety section. Ideally this should probably be split out into its own section and go into some summary about the particular sparkling, fortified, botrytized wines. Maybe also a brief touch on Cognac and wine based spirits like Kir.
• Climate & Geography. Some type of summary about major features like rivers, Massif Central, Mistral winds etc and the varying influences of continental, maritime and Mediterranean climates. Brief summary on different soil types in the major regions.
• Terroir section could do a little better summary than a few lines. It maybe best to merge it into the intro on the Wine region section as a segway.
• Culture and Food pairing section Two MAJOR topics on the relationship of French wine to the culture and cuisine of France. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Good thoughts, although I think that if everything in the list was fixed, it would reasonably be a GA. The trends section could probably be split between the history section and a new "commercial aspects" section, but here more than for many other parts, extensive referencing is needed. Not just because it could be OR, it's POV-prone territory where some edits may want to either engage in France-bashing or defend the gloire of the world's #1 wine country. IMHO, wine and food pairing is an even more difficult subject than description of wine flavours if you want to avoid POV. But perhaps there are better sources than I'm aware of. Tomas e (talk) 11:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Logo-vigneron Thmb.jpg

Image:Logo-vigneron Thmb.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 13:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] à la propriété

.. does not, in this context, mean "at the estate", but "at the cooperative". In a few cases the grapes will be vinified separately and the wine bottled under the name of the grower's 'chateau', but most growers simply sell their grapes to the cooperative (getting paid by quantity and sugar content). Philip Trueman (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the statement about what "au domaine" means is wrong as well, as far as I can say... But what this article really needs are not just corrected statements, but reliably sourced statements. Feel free to help... Tomas e (talk) 16:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)