The Wine Project Newsletter! Issue IX - January 7th, 2008

Happy New Years! Welcome to the first 2008 edition of the Wine Project Newsletter. With all the leaps and bounds that the project took in 2007, we have a great platform this year to build on as we continue to improve Wikipedia's coverage of wine-related articles. On to the rundown.

• Portal:Wine up for Featured Portal status

User:Tanner-Christopher has done an awesome job in fixing up the Wine Portal with new content and has got it primped and ready for its review as a featured portal. Take a look at the candidate's page and follow the action.

• ONGOING: Wine Project survey

Many thanks to those who have already participated. The feedback from this survey is very helpful in focusing the efforts of the wine project and maximizing the ideas and resources of all our members.

• Did you know... that since our last newsletter we've had 19 wine related DYKs appear on the main page?

Great work to all the wine project members that contributed to getting wine related content on the main page of Wikipedia. Some of the featured articles included Vini Lunardelli by User:Tomas e with its controversial wine labels, Rhone Rangers by User:FlagSteward and his sidekick Tonto and Mas de Daumas Gassac by User:Murgh featuring the "Grand Cru" of the Languedoc wine region and an interesting character from the film Mondovino. Remember, if you've started a new article or significantly expanded an existing article at least five fold, be sure to nominate it for DYK and, when it is featured, add it to our list which is featured on the front page of the Wine Project.

• Traffic cop

User:Henrik has come with a neat tool that list the numbers of page views that a Wikipedia article receives on any given day. The tool is currently in beta stage with only information from Dec-Jan but it is already revealing some interesting data.

Wine was viewed over 85,000 times in Dec.

Bordeaux wine, a Top importance wine article, was viewed over 12,600 times in Dec,

Champagne (wine), another top importance wine article, was viewed over 54,000 times in Dec.

Glossary of wine terms, a nominee for top importance (See the bottom of the Project's main page to add your view) was viewed almost 9,000 times in Dec.

Toscana (wine), another nominee, was viewed over 700 times in Dec.

Chianti, a current top importance article that has been suggest to be re-evaluated as a High importance, was viewed over 13,000 times in Dec.

• WANTED: A Good-Article coordinator/liaison from the Wine Project

As some of the early feed back from the Wine Project survey and previous discussion on the Project talk page have indicated, more focus should be on getting Wine Articles up to GA status. To facilitate these efforts, the newsletter is putting out an "APB" for a project member willing to coordinate the project's endeavors in this area. While any Wikipedian or wine project member is always free to nominate any wine article for GA status, the role of the GA coordinator/liaison will be to identify potential GA articles from our current crop of B-class wine articles and serve as point man in shepherding the article through WP:GAC. Other wine project members can assist in giving a hand in responding to the GA-reviewers questions and requests. If you have any questions, feel free to drop a note at the talk page discussion on the idea. Anyone is encouraged to volunteer, don't feel like you need to have some sort of "presence" or super-activity level with the Wine Project. An interest in helping out is all that is requested. :)

• WANTED: List of needed wine region maps

As part of our 2008 initiative to improve the overall quality of wine articles, the project is attempting to compile a list of wine region articles that need a free-image map. For some maps, wine project members will attempt to boldly take a stab at creating. For others, there is the Graphics Lab that may be able to help out with existing maps that could be improved and we will be looking for potential map-makers from other Wikimedia-projects that may be able to give a hand. There is also the potential that the Greenspun illustration project will expand it scope to include Map creation. In the meantime, if you know of a wine region article that could really use a map illustration add it to the talk page discussion.

In this edition, we get to know Amatulić

What got you first interested in wine?

During most of my life, an uncle has always grown grapes and made wine. During each visit he would ply me with his latest creations. He eventually perfected his craft and in the mid-1990s he built a wine cave, opened his winery, hung a sign out in front of his property, did absolutely no advertising, and sold out his entire stock from his tasting room the first year — a good feat considering Plymouth (Amador county) is off the beaten path for wine tourists. Word of mouth spreads fast for good wine, I suppose. However, I didn't develop any interest in wine until the year 2000 when I moved back to California and began visiting him regularly, whereupon he'd often put me to work behind the tasting counter. My fiancée (now my wife) would pitch in too, so we can now both claim "wine industry" creds when we go tasting.

After two years of consuming primarily my family's own wine, we expanded our horizons to tasting trips in Amador, Napa, Russian River, Sonoma, Paso Robles, Lodi, as well as Maui and Hawai'i, and wine stores in Singapore (mostly French and Australian there), accumulating fine wines faster than we can drink it! We now have too much wine; some whites are going bad from being cellared too long.

What brought you to Wikipedia?

I noticed a coworker often used Wikipedia as a quick reference. I started doing the same and found myself heavily involved with the stevia article, eventually bringing it to GA status. Within a few months of my first edit, I discovered the wine articles. Unfortunately, most of my time is now spent dealing with anonymous IP vandals.

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

I edit articles on a wide variety of topics. I try to avoid pop-culture subjects (famous people, bands, songs, etc.), instead focusing on subjects like math, wine, biology, theology, technology, pseudoscience, etc.

What is your favorite wine? Least favorite wine?

In my youth, I liked white wine. Now I prefer reds with big robust flavors, such as Syrah, Zinfandel, Sangiovese, and Malbec, among others. While I don't go for sweetness, I do appreciate fruit flavors.

My least favorite? Well, this may be heresy, but I dislike two popular wines, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. Occasionally I'll come across one that I like, and buy it. Otherwise they give me no pleasure. Unfortunately, my palette-knowledge isn't yet helpful telling me why. Only once in my life have I enjoyed a Pinot Noir, but when the person who poured it for me revealed that this was a rare $400 bottle of wine, I realized that I will never afford a Pinot Noir I could like. So I gave up on it.

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

Plavac Mali grapes make tasty, big-flavored wine. It's under-appreciated because it isn't widely available outside of Croatia.

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

I am most proud of the contribution I made to the Zinfandel article concerning its history and search for its origins which led to the discovery of Crljenak Kaštelanski in Croatia. I actually traveled to Croatia with my father (who speaks the language) and searched for days to find Ivica Radunić, the owner of the vineyard where Zinfandel's ancestor was discovered. We found him, got a lot of good information, tasted his wine (no pure Crljenak Kaštelanski exists; he blends it with Plavac Mali and others), and I took many pictures, one of which appears in the Zinfandel article.

Know any good wine jokes/quotes?

This is an oldie but I still like it:

“

A man walks into a wine bar and boasts that he can identify any wine poured for him. Customers and the bartender offer him several glasses of wine, each of which he tastes and identifies correctly. "That's a 1995 Médoc Bordeaux from the vineyard of Francois Emilion", "this is just a 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon from Gallo wineries", "Ah, a 2002 old vine Zinfandel from Frank Story's place" and so on. Finally one customer hands him a glass, which he tastes and spits out. "This tastes like piss!" The customer answers, "Yes, but whose?"

”

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

I feel one coming on now....

I like buying from small boutique wineries whose wines can't be found anywhere but the winery itself. The wine snob in me is amazed at what the "notable" critics miss. I'm more amazed at the mass-produced dreck they rate 90+ points. Tasting some of these highly-rated wines has convinced me that critics don't know how good a wine can be. In fairness, I guess the poor bastards have no choice but to rate what the hoi polloi can easily obtain.

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

Expanding stubs and focusing on Good Articles is important. I don't find the effort required for Featured Article status as worthwhile as making several Good Articles.

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

Well, here's my problem. I have sources that are reliable, but they aren't written. To use an example, someone like Mike Grgich is a reliable source for certain topics (and no, I don't personally know him; others here do). You can go to him and ask him a question and get an answer. That source is also verifiable in the sense that anyone else can ask him the same question, and get the same answer. Such sources hamper my ability to edit wine-related articles unless I can find something written to confirm what a reliable-source person has told me. How do you cite a conversation? I think other editors might share my problem if they are more involved in growing grapes, making wine, and selling wine, rather than being end-user consumers. There's a vast body of knowledge shared among wine-makers or commercial buyers that isn't easily found in writing. -Amatulic (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A sampling of how Wikipedia's wine articles are being used on the web.

• Shiraz (grape) (B class article, Top importance) - Neil Pendock, The Times of South Africa Jan 3rd, 2008 mentioned the claim in the Wikipedia article about the grape that it originated from the city in Iran, a claim repeated in the Shiraz (disambiguation) page. In his blog entry, Paddrock reviews a book that has some disagreement with other claims in the Shiraz article.
• Bottle opener section on the "Ah-So" cork remover-somewhat cross covered in the Corkscrew (Start class, Low importance) was mentioned on the West Coast Wine forums about the origins of this unique openers name.
• Grüner Veltliner (Start class, High importance) was referenced on the Wine Library TV Forums as beginning point in learning about this unique Austrian variety.
• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (Start class, High importance) article was referenced on the Mark Squires/Robert Parker forum in wondering what the heck a "pinot noir fin" was noted in the first line of the Romanée-Conti section of the article.
• Riesling (GA class, Top importance) was also referenced on Mark Squires/Robert Parker forum in answer to a question about the kerosene or petroleum taste associated with the wine.

Enjoy the start of 2008 and keep up the great work. If you have any questions, comments or ideas about the newsletter, don't hesitate to drop me a line of my talk page. Associate editors and reporters are always welcomed as well.

Agne

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