Like many subjects on
Wikipedia,
wine is a complex and multi-faceted subject that touches on a wide range of subjects. It overlaps into the worlds of
chemistry,
biology,
geology,
climatology,
agriculture,
botany,
business and
marketing,
cuisine,
history,
psychology and
civilization-all perhaps in the same article. Under the parent category of
Category:Wine, there are a wide ranges of wine-related articles that need to be properly categorized. Since Wikipedia's inception in 2001, many
good faith editors have created a wide assortment of wine categories that contributed to an incoherent, cohesiveness
hodgepodge of categories that lack structure or organization. Many categories cover duplicated material or were misappropriated to the wrong sub-set of articles. Since late 2009, the
Wine Project has been involved in an extensive clean up to improve the categorization of wine articles. This project guideline is an attempt to explain the different types of wine articles that exist and offer guidance on what would be the best path to categorize them in a consistent, organized manner. Anyone is welcome to comment on wine articles categorization either on this guideline's talk page or
the project's talk page.
Different types of wine articles
The first step in categorizing wine articles is to distinguish what type of article it is. As Wikipedia is a constant "work in progress", the type of article may not be readily apparent by the content left by previous editors. If you are not sure of the type of article, feel free to ask on the article's talk page or over at the Wine Project.
Main types of wine articles
The vast majority of wine related articles fall into 5 categories listed below-Grape varieties, Wine regions, Quality level designations (such as AOCs or DOCs regions), Producers and Wine styles. The 6th category listed-Individual specific wines-is for individual bottlings made from a producer (such as
Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon) and are very rare to have individual Wikipedia articles on. This category is included here because it is often confused with the proper categorization of articles on producers, regions and quality level designations.
Grape varieties - These include articles like
Cabernet Sauvignon,
Nebbiolo and
Chardonnay. Many wines, especially those in the
New World are
varietally labeled and so it is common to refer to Cabernet Sauvignon as both a grape and a wine. In Wikipedia, we discuss both the grape details and wines made from that grape in the same article. For the benefit of classification, we categorizes these articles as
Category:Grape varieties or under a regional grape variety sub-cat like
Category:Wine grapes of Italy, for country/region sub categories we do not list all planted grapes, we list only grapes that have originated or is strongly associated with that country/region, i.e.
Grenache originating in Spain but has a strong connection with France and should be categorized in both countries sub categories, similarly e.g. Syrah should be categorised in both France and Australia.
Wine regions - These include regional overview articles like
Loire Valley (wine),
South African wine and
Washington wine. These articles are usually distinguished from articles on the geo-political region by the (wine) qualifier such as the island of
Corsica vs the
Corsica wine article which gives a regional overview of wines from the island. Articles on the geo-political unit such
Pauillacshould not be categorized with wine cats. A separate
Pauillac (wine) article should be created with all the wine specific details. In cases where there is not enough details wine details to merit an article apart from the geo-political unit, regional overview articles such as
Languedoc wine should be created and appropriately categorized.
Quality level designations - In Europe, wine production takes place under a quality classification system that has specific rules and regulations that a producer must follow in order to have their wine labeled as a
Chianti,
Champagne or
Rioja. While part of these AOCs/DOCs regulations include growing the grapes within the boundaries of a certain region, that alone doesn't mean they can label their wines with that region. They must also follow specific grape variety composition, yields levels, aging requirements as well as potentially other winemaking and viticultural practices. Some wine even have to submit to a tasting panel in order to ensure that they meet a certain quality. For this reason, AOCs and DOCs are more probably classified as "quality level designations" rather than as simply wine regions. However, in practice, articles will normally refer to them as regions since that is a common public perception. These articles should have categories specifying them as AOCs and DOCs such as
Category:French wine AOCs and
Category:Italian DOC.
Individual specific wines- Articles on these are very rare since so few individual wines are notable on their own apart from the context of being discusses in an article about the winery. Wines such as the
2005 Quilceda Creek Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, which wine critic
Robert Parker gave a rare perfect 100 point score, and the
1998 Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Bolgheri Superiore that won
Wine Spectator's prestigious Wine of the Year award in 2001 are examples of individual specific wines that are notable but even then it is more advantageous to discuss these wines within the context of the article on their producer (in these cases Quilceda Creek or
Ornellaia).
Wine styles- These includes on distinct styles of wine that are separate from wine regions or quality level designations like
Champagne,
Sherry and
Port. Wine styles include
rosés,
sparkling wines,
straw wines,
fruit wines,
fortified wines and
dessert wines. These wines should be categorizes in the appropriate sub-cat of
Category:Wine styles. These are broad style classifications and not "individual specific wines". For example
White Zinfandel would be categorized as
Category:Rosé wines as a broad style classification while an article on
Sutter Home White Zinfandel (which allegedly pioneered the style) would be a "individual specific wine" worthy of something under the
Category:Wines family. However, it should be again noted that articles on individual specific wines are very rare with the content more likely to be included in the producer's article which wouldn't be classified under the
Category:Wines family.
Other types of wine articles
The subjects of the articles below are more easily identified and distinguished. Categorizations of these articles are generally simpler with the caveat that these articles are more likely to include categories from outside the scope of the wine topic. For example, enology and
winemaking articles such as the
Phenolic compounds in wine are likely to have other scientific categories such as
Category:Phenols in addition to the parent winemaking cat of
Category:Oenology.