Talk:Champagne/Archive 1

message: The user Pith Helmet plagiarized an article from http://www.champagneclub.org/ using many word for word quotations without using quote marks, so I reverted that user's two edits to this page.
70.92.146.111 22:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Plagiarism

message: This regards the formation of bubbles; the article avers it has to do with air pockets in the glass, but I remember seeing something in Popular Science about this being disproven with slow-motion video or photography (and that the bubbles actually come from impurities such as dust or fibers of cloth from a dishtowel). I can't seem to find the article, though, and I've checked their website. Help! Deltabeignet 04:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are right. Might have been a real science magazine, but I remember that article. Wnissen 06:29, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The bubbles form on cellulose fibres, either from dust in the air, or left over from the wiping/drying process. References are: Am. J. Enol. Vitic. 53(2):151-153 (2002) abstract. here: - http://www.asev.org/Journal/Volumes/53_2/Pgs151-153%20Abstract.pdf  Copy of paper in Europhysics News (2002) Vol. 33 No. 1here: - http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/13/article3/article3.html Another paper ( Ann. Phys. Fr., Vol. 27, N°4 July/August 2002, pp. 1-106) here:  - http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/anphys/abs/2002/04/ann042002/ann042002.html They make interesting reading....WLD 12:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Factual dispute over type of nucleation source for the bubbles

message: :: The bubbles form on cellulose fibres, either from dust in the air, or left over from the wiping/drying process. References are: Am. J. Enol. Vitic. 53(2):151-153 (2002) abstract. here: - http://www.asev.org/Journal/Volumes/53_2/Pgs151-153%20Abstract.pdf  Copy of paper in Europhysics News (2002) Vol. 33 No. 1here: - http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/13/article3/article3.html Another paper ( Ann. Phys. Fr., Vol. 27, N°4 July/August 2002, pp. 1-106) here:  - http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/anphys/abs/2002/04/ann042002/ann042002.html They make interesting reading....WLD 12:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Answer

message: Do we have a List of chamgagne producers or something similar? Pcb21| Pete 23:40, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: in :fr:Vin de Champagne --Ste281 16:16, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: or List of champagne producers Rescendent 14:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: List of producers

message: ===Grapester links===
anon IP address has been going around adding links to Grapester. Basically seems to be commercial, and the information on that site is no better than what we already have.
No, there is enough advertising about that. See links for that.
===Uncorked: The Science of Champagne===
Is the link "Uncorked: The Science of Champagne" a book by... just a link to buy a book? Rescendent 14:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added a Bibliography section and moved the book into there, changed link to be via ISBN as per wiki guidelines. Is Bibliography the right name/section, as the book I do not believe is referenced or used in the article. Suggestions please. Rescendent 17:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed Bibliography to Further reading sits better. Any thoughts? Rescendent 18:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External Link Issues

message: Is the link "Uncorked: The Science of Champagne" a book by... just a link to buy a book? Rescendent 14:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added a Bibliography section and moved the book into there, changed link to be via ISBN as per wiki guidelines. Is Bibliography the right name/section, as the book I do not believe is referenced or used in the article. Suggestions please. Rescendent 17:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed Bibliography to Further reading sits better. Any thoughts? Rescendent 18:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Uncorked: The Science of Champagne

message: Somebody added a bit about using a golf club to open a bottle of champagne, and called it "ironage". Now, I've never heard of this, and neither has google, so I removed it and put it here:
If you happen to be on the golf course this can be done with a seven-iron in which case its called "ironage".  Set the bottle against a tee marker or other suitable object and hold it in place with your left foot (right-handed golfer).  As with all golf shots, this should be practiced on the range before trying it on the course.
If it's real, put it back and cite a source. Lostchicken 04:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ironage 

message: Please do not edit other people's comments on the talk page - the convention is to add your own edits, not change other people's, and also, please sign your contribution with four tildes like this ~~~~.
Please note that contentious topics should be discussed openly, and it is advisable to be able to cire sources and references for any facts you may wish to assert.  Editing the sense of other people's contributions is not the convention on Wikipedia talk pages.  You are encouraged to register a username (it's free) to facilitate discussions. WLD 23:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: To the person editing from 4.243.x.x (Level 3)

message: Should this article use American English or British/Commonwealth English spellings?  The official English variant in use in the European Union (where Champagne comes from) is British English, so should the spellings therefore be British English?  I know normally the rule is to use the spelling rules for whichever variant was used for the original article. Thoughts anyone? WLD 20:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: Anyone who has ever contemplated a "strand of beads" (a string of bubbles rising from the bottom of a champagne flute) knows of their hypnotizing capability. To insist that these strands are primarily caused by dust and/or lint is to exhibit a fundamental lack of understanding as to their creation. After reading all of the references cited regarding the "lint" research which, although it may explain a small percentage of the mousse (French for foam) seen in a glass of sparkling wine, cannot explain why a glass of "champagne " continues to produce bubbles once the initial rush has settled down. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that as bubbles form on any lint/dust they will quickly pull those particles to the surface of the liquid, removing them from the equation. When a sparkling wine is poured into an unetched glass it will very quickly look "flat" after the initial burst of efferesence, unless the glass has been roughened by etching to provide nucleation sites. To insist that this statement requires a scientific reference is like saying I need proof before I say that "rain requires the presence of water." Although the British drink more Champagne per capita than any other country, that doesn't make "Mr. West End Dweller" the world's penultimate expert on bubbles. All anyone needs is a couple of flutes (one etched and one unetched) and a bottle of sparkling wine, to clearly demonstrate that an etch causes the formation of bubbles. Cheers!
PS. Have you ever seen someone put a shake of salt in their beer? What happens? The beer foams up; because the salt crystals are providing nucleation sites. The same as if that glass was etched. QED
(The above unsigned comments written by User:Domainiac1743)
:Hello Domainiac1743.  Thank-you for creating an account, and a warm welcome to Wikipedia. As a new user, you may not realise that it is usual to 'sign' your comments by typing four tildes in a row like this '~~~~'
:I'm afraid your comments do not stand scrutiny.  To quote from the Europhysics News paper "Most of nucleation sites are located on hollow and roughly cylindrical exogenous cellulose fibres" - that is to say, not 'a small percentage' to use your phrase.
:Furthermore, the fibres will not be quickly pulled to the surface.  If you look carefully at at a glass of champagne, you'll notice that nucleation sites in the body of the liquid do not rush to the surface with the speed of the bubbles themselves - they in fact drift around quite languidly.
:Etching, in and of itself, does not provide nucleation sites. However, the roughened surface of the glass acts as an excellent trap for fibres and other ariel borne detritus, and it is this that provides the majority of the nucleation sites.  As the Europhysics News paper points out, "The length-scale of glass and crystal irregularities is far below the critical radius of curvature required for the non-classical heterogeneous nucleation." . 
:I'm afraid you do need scientific back-up for apparently obvious statements - a couple of cases may illustrate this for you: at first sight, it does look as if the sun goes round the earth; and that the earth seems to be flat.  Both statements are statements of the 'obvious', and yet we know not to be true.  It also seems obvious that a feather and a hammer will fall at different 'speeds' - yet the famous exeriment on the Moon showed that when the astronaut released them, they both hit the moon at the same time - falling in a vacuum meant the feather was no longer slowed down by air-resistance. 
:An etched glass will produce more bubbles becasue is is 'dirtier'.  You might not be able to see the fibres acting as nucleation sites, as they are one-hundredth of a millimetre across, but they are there. 
:The salt grains in beer example demonstrates nothing - I have no idea how the length scale of irregularities on salt crystals compares to the radius of curvature required to support bubble formation and growth in beer. If you are trying to say that foreign bodies in the liquid promote bubble formation, then you are supporting the case that nucleation occurs on such bodies, and the same is presumably true of fibres in champagne. 
:Please back up your claim with references that etching alone provides nucleation sites - simply stating it to be true doesn't make it true, and I can find no literature supporting that claim. WLD 23:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bubbles 

message: Section removed as below:    
:- Because Champagne is a branded product of relatively few producers and is of rather consistent quality, wine critics such as Robert M. Parker serve little function for Champagne consumers. 
Reason for removal:
:There are more than 15,000 growers; more than 400 houses, each producing upwards of 4 different bottles each year, each which is very different. With 1,600+ different types of champagne each year; it is helpful for guidence to be provided. Also not sure why the reference to Robert M. Parker in particular. This seems an unverifiable section.
::Consistent quality? I think not. Justinc 11:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed: Evaluation of Champagne

message: I reverted a change wherein US trademark law (which treats "champagne" as a semi-generic term) is referred to as a "loophole"; on the grounds that this comment is POV.  Simply noting the state of US law, without the editorial disapproval generated by the negative term "loophole", will suffice.  US trademark law has a longstanding practice and tradition of restricting the ability of manufacturers and merchants to "own" common words and place names.  Sometimes this can lead to slightly misleading trade names.  The treatment of "champagne" is not at all unusual under the US system.  Many, including myself, tend to view trademarking of place names as anti-consumer and protectionist; more for the benefit of the merchant than of the consumer.  (Note that US law does not permit misleading indications of origin; a bottle may not proclaim "Made in France" unless the wine is indeed of French origin).
I'm not sure how US law treats other terms of origin in the wine trade, such as Bordeaux or Burgundy.  As these terms have not been genericized; it wouldn't surprise me if they receive greater protection.Actually, Burgundy and Bordeaux receive even less protection.
The term "loophole" implies that the right and proper state of affairs is for "C/champagne" to receive the legal protection indicated, and any other course of action is somehow deviant or wrong-headed.
--EngineerScotty 05:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Loophole" = POV 

message: It is my understanding that the British have a valid claim to the invention of Champagne.
Essentially the wine was always a still beverage like any other, until the well-heeled English of the 17th century developed a taste for it in larger quantities than the French were readily able to supply. The French started supplying younger and younger product, which would continue to ferment and carbonate as it was shipped in sealed barrels (especially when stirred by the motion of sea travel). Wine that fermented in transit would produce positive CO2 pressure and was therefore better able to protect itself from the rigours of sea travel (and taste fresher on arrival) than wine that had fermented out which could oxidise and stale in the barrel.
The British, used to drinking cider and ale with a slight fizz anyway, started to enjoy the fizzy wine, and some importers would deliberately charge wine that wasn't considered lively enough with sugar, in order that it would ferment further in the bottle and create a fizz. Bottles so charged would often break so the British made stronger bottles (possible with hotter coal furnaces, not wood as was used by French glass producers). Also the French did not use corks until much later, they used bungs made from hemp and/or wood, which are unlikely to have provided enough of a seal for reliable production of a sparkling wine.
English poets were writing of the joys of the 'sparkling champagne' decades before the earliest French records that mention fizz (1660s vs 1700s).
No doubt the French champagne houses played a large part in refining some of the production process and making the product more 'noble', but to claim 'invention of' the sparkling version is a stretch given the English were effectively drinking it before the French even had the technology to produce it.
Much of this version of events is supported in 'the ultimate encyclopedia of wine beer spirits & liquers' (Stuart Walton & Brian Glover, Anness Publishing 1998) as well as anecdotally among London wine merchants, but I am not aware of any other citable sources at present. If I find any more I will of course add them.
:How does this square with the claim in our article that the first known commercially produced sparkling wine comes from Languedoc, and dates to circa 1535?  There needs to be somethign to support that claim....  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  British invention of 

message: The section on bubbles is a tad ...academic. There is a lot of vocabulary that needs some defining, and the entire section needs to be re-written for an audience not composed of physicists.   Harley peters 20:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bubbles section 

message: Surely the passage below is a joke and should be removed. It is unsubstantiated and I couldn't find a reference to it in any publication in English -- besides which, it's an obvious absurdity:
:On the 1st April 2006, the EU passed a law that stipulated Champagne had to be pronounced as Cham-pag-neigh as in the natural French pronunciation. Within the EU is is currently a criminal offence to use a different pronunciation with a mandatory fine and possible withdrawal of a license for off-licenceses, pubs and restaurants. To enforce this the EU is working with the authourities in different countries with spot checks and undercover shoppers.
Aleslinger 23:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to have gone. Nothing would surprise me about EU regulation, but two things are dead giveaways: the date, and the fact that the French don't say it that way. Notinasnaid 09:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Champagne and the law 

message: This page should be at Champagne, and the current contents of that page should be moved to Champagne (disambiguation). Don't you think so? Coffee 04:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  I think I fixed most of the incoming links that needed fixing. --Dgies 16:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm inclined to agree with Mr. 71.109.186.127.  Was this move from Champagne (beverage) to Champagne proper discussed anywhere other than this talk page?  Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Turkey is another example where a geographic location takes precedence over a consumable.  Is there any objection to moving this page back to Champagne (beverage)?  If not, I will do so within the week.  Can't sleep, clown will eat me 03:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: MOVE - I am a big proponent of being as clear as possible on the naming of the articles. Champagne (beverage) makes much more sense, and Champagne (wine) makes the most sense of all to me. Then again, since the List of cocktails links to Champagne (beverage), it would mean less work in editing links to set everything back to Champagne (beverage). --Willscrlt 19:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the debate was Move Champagne → Champagne (wine) and Champagne (disambiguation) → Champagne.  —Wknight94 (talk) 18:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move? 

message: I appreciate the attempts to improve the article and inclusion of a nice picture, but the section has seemed to dance into original research and become a "How to". I wouldn't want to outright delete the section because it does offer some interesting info but we need to find a way to rewrite it (and find some reliable sources to cite) so we can lessen the OR and "How to"-ish tone. Agne 21:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sabre section 

message: The champagne article is getting pretty long and I cringe at the possible length if such details as the history of the Méthode champenoise is fleshed out. What do you guys think about splintering a main article on Champagne production method with a link to a summary paragraph here? Agne 22:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I recently merged Méthode Champenoise here because it looked like this. If you want to take out the entire Production section out you can simply put it in the existing article (which currently redirects here). Actually, the old text from Methode looks like a summary, maybe you could just swap them. Tocharianne 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not a bad idea and I understand the original merge. That stub did sit in a sorry state for a long time. Agne 00:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: So far we seem to have a favorable consensus. I'll wait a little longer to see if there is any dissent. Agne 00:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Champagne production]] splinter article? 

message: The following question was left on the Champagne (disambiguation) talk page. Tocharianne 15:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What grapes are allowed in Champagne? 

message: :Add  # Support  or  # Oppose  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.
====Survey - Support votes====
====Survey - Oppose votes====
#Oppose: From what I see, most of the people that stated a preference said (wine).  In fact, it wasn't even close.  See discussion below.  —Wknight94 (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: #Oppose: From what I see, most of the people that stated a preference said (wine).  In fact, it wasn't even close.  See discussion below.  —Wknight94 (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey - Oppose votes

message: I don't really care which spelling is used, but it should be consistent throughout the article. Is the "ageing" spelling (which my dictionary lists as a "variant" of aging) more commonly used in discussions about wine? Recury 20:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aging/Ageing 

message: OK, many battles have been fought on these pages, and in the world at large, about the appellation control of the term 'champagne.'  Here, we have discussed whether to capitalize 'champagne' or not among other things.  A tremendous amount of time was spent on the talk page discussing nucleation and what the exact mechanism of that phenomenon is.  Not necessarily time wasted since it is in the pursuit of truth.  But hasn't anyone noticed the absolute invasion by a one-note-Johnny Wikipedian named "Markep1" who has unabashedly introduced Soviet POV into this article?  Everything from telling us that a former Soviet region created wine making to inserting pictures of Soviet champagne into the article.  It is really borderline vandalism.  I think there is room for mention of this user's info in the brief section on "Champagne and the law" and that's about it.  There is certainly no excuse for mention of the Sovetskoye Shampanskoye brand in the opening paragraph of an article on champagne.
While we're at it, note that Markep1 has recently created or edited articles for Sovetskoye Shampanskoye and Sparkling 1917.  If you look at his user contributions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Markep1, his interest has only been in putting Soviet POV into the articles: sparkling wine, champagne (wine).  Likewise, he unabashedly inserts mention of a commercial enterprise ironwolf.com into articles (including the article on champagne – LOL, not even the major houses in France or their importers/exporters are mentioned in the article) and he promotes links to the same UK importer of Soviet wines http://www.iron-wolf.co.uk/.
Markep1 has also uploaded a photo from the Sparkling 1917 website.  Image:Hero bottle image1.jpg. The disclaimer he elected to use was .  He does not have the right to make this notation if he is not the owner of the copyright.  If he works for the company and actually took this photo, then we see that he is editing articles not in the pursuit of academia, but for commercial purposes which is direct conflict with Wikipedia's guidelines. The Wikipedia user Markep1 may in fact work for the company since ironwolf.co.uk says that "Mark Pursey" (very close to Markep) is the  Director of Iron Wolf Ltd.  Either way this photo should be deleted from Wikipedia altogether.
In light of all of this, I am cleaning up the article, getting rid of the commercialism and making the mention of Soviet sparkling wine more commensurate with it's actual importance.  I can't believe we argued the pilpul of nucleation forever, but have let this POV go unreverted for weeks now.  72.79.53.123 21:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pro-Soviet POV