Wikipedia:Peer review/New Zealand wine/archive1

New Zealand wine

Hi folks, I've listed this article for peer review because I've been slowly improving the article over the last couple of years or so. Ultimately I would like to get this article across the line for a Good Article status, so I'm interested in what you think needs to be done. The Article Quality gadget rates it currently as Feature Article with an ORES score of 4.99, so I'm cautiously (perhaps naïvely?) optimistic that there's not too much more to be done!

I have tried to drum up interest from other editors as can be seen from the article's talk page and the WP:NZWNB noticeboard, but it's largely been me picking away at it by myself (any help much appreciated of course!) Things I've done:

• improve readability, generally improve the writing style, consolidate the article summary, and eliminate repetition;
• remove unsubstantiated or vague subjective claims (especially WP:NOTWINEGUIDE;
• improve article flow and structure;
• improve accuracy, bring it up to date (from a state as of about 2008-2010);
• reduce the length and repetition of the article by spinning off the most important regions to separate articles Marlborough wine region, Hawke's Bay wine region (Central Otago wine region had already been done);
• improve references by using better reliable sources, use citation templates;
• use official statistics, update the data presented from around 2009 to 2018, create two new charts, improve the out-dated region map (but I'd love someone who knows how to do maps properly to fix up my pretty amateurish attempt!)

It is still a work in progress in terms of coverage - e.g. the "natural wine" movement, the newly merged single annual awards event and perhaps the Fine Wines NZ initiative probably deserve a mention, the role of international big players and takeovers (Pernod Ricard, Lion/Kirin, Constellation bought Nobilo, etc.)

Thanks, Jon (talk) 22:20, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

I've only just clocked this article on the list of PRs. At first glance it looks good. It is a substantial text and needs careful scrutiny, so I may take two or three goes. More soon, I hope, after a proper first read-through. Tim riley talk 20:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Initial comments

This has the makings of a top-notch article, but – first and foremost – it needs a fair bit of work on the citations. The five paragraphs of the Climate and soil section, and the four of Industry structure and production methods have not a citation between them. There are half a dozen paragraphs in the Red wine section without any citations, and so on. As a rule of thumb, for GA or FA pretty well any statement of fact needs a citation.

A few individual comments on the prose:

• "New Zealand, an island country in the South Pacific Ocean" – As one who lives in Britain, an island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, I don't know that this geographical clue is absolutely essential.
  • I have reworded that section to emphasise the point that probably got lost at some point, which is that the island geography produces the maritime climates (as opposed to continental/interior climates).—Jon (talk)
• It might be as well to be consistent about false titles. You have one for "British Resident and keen oenologist James Busby" but "the expert consultant viticulturist and oenologist Romeo Bragato" escapes without one.
  • Not sure what you mean but I assume you mean "keen oenologist" - have reworded to eliminate.—Jon (talk)
• "he concluded that the Wairarapa and New Zealand was "pre-eminently suited to viticulture."" – two things here. This is the first mention of Wairarapa, and a blue link would be helpful. Secondly W and NZ were suited, not was, surely?
  • Fixed—Jon (talk)
• "their vineyards produced table wine, sherry and port" – table wines, no doubt, but not sherry or port, which come from Spain and Portugal respectively. Sherry-type and port-type perhaps.
  • In Australia and New Zealand, "sherry" and "port" are still used as generic terms for white and red fortified wines, but point taken; "fortified wines" is probably sufficient here. They were mostly pretty awful, often topped up with sugar and water...—Jon (talk)
• "The cost common use of land" – most common, I imagine.
  • Fixed—Jon (talk)
• "was (and still is) animal agriculture" – beware of WP:DATED. An "as at 2010 still is" will do the trick.
  • Or, to keep it simple, remove.—Jon (talk)
• "Ironically, many growers" – "Ironically" and other WP:EDITORIAL words and phrases are best avoided. Let your readers make up their own minds whether any facts are or are not ironical.
  • Fixed, reworded.—Jon (talk)
• "former river bed with very stoney soils" – I comment with diffidence here, as BrE and NZEng may differ, and I may be quite wrong about the latter, but I'd make riverbed one word and spell stony without an e. So would the Oxford English Dictionary, but I recognise WP:ENGVAR, of course. Here and later please just ignore me if I quote the OED when NZ usage is different.
  • Yes, en-NZ is much closer to en-GB than en-US; "stony" and "riverbed" are both good (c.f. NZ Oxford Dictionary, also Collins NZ English Dictionary in dead-tree format). This makes me want to pass it through an en-NZ spell checker... this is in one of the badly unreferenced sections, essentially someone's essay from 10-15 years ago... you can tell from the absence of wiki-links and the double-spacing between sentences.—Jon (talk)
• "top soil … bed rock" – cases in point. The OED hyphenates top-soil and bed-rock.
  • In en-NZ they are simply single words. Also, fixed "viticulturalist" to "viticulturist" —Jon (talk)
• "a number of well known producers" – two points here. "a number of" is woolly. A lot? A few? And well-known surely has to be hyphenated when used attributively, as here.
  • Agreed, again, someone else's essay that I need to fix :-D I'll need to find sources for this whole section but fixed to "many" for now; it's true, but needs a ref.—Jon (talk)
• "It should be remembered" – more WP:EDITORIAL
  • Fixed—Jon (talk)
• "strength of flavor in the wine favoured" – it seems odd to have an American-style "flavor" and an English-style "favoured" in the same sentence. One or the other throughout, one might expect.
  • Fixed—Jon (talk)

I could do a second batch of comments on prose points, but perhaps it might be sensible to wait till you've addressed the key point about the lack of citations. Ping me, by all means. By the bye, the usual message "Currently being peer reviewed" does not appear on the article page. Might be worth checking you've followed the PR instructions to the letter: I don't see the expected "{{Peer review|archive=1}}" at the top of the article talk page. You won't get much passing trade at PR without that, I suspect. Tim riley talk 17:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks so much for taking the time to review. I moved the PR template on the talk page to the top, where it's more visible. I've commented above with sub-bullets as I've addressed each bit, rather than repeat everything here. Much of the unreferenced blocks of text in particular is old stuff that I haven't yet researched; when I do it will have citations.—Jon (talk) 10:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)