A fact from Vidal blanc appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 April 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Photo request: Just about all of them! Any pictures of wine regions, grape varieties or wine would be useful. In particular we need wine region maps that can be licensed for Wikipedia.
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Vidal Blanc → Vidal blanc – Should "blanc" be de-capped? Many sources use "Blanc", according to Google results, and some used "blanc". Now that I'm abstaining from this request, I wonder if "blanc" is more accurate than "Blanc". George Ho (talk) 21:45, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support - It's pretty standard in wine texts to have color descriptors be lowercase (Pinot blanc, Chenin blanc, Pinot noir, Sauvignon vert, etc) while non-color descriptors such as Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Meunier, etc tend to both be capitalize. The Wine Project tries to be consistent, especially as we go through and clean up the articles. I tried to moved the page when I was working on this article but since it required an RM I put it on the back burner to maybe do a batch move later on if I come across other articles that needed fixing. AgneCheese/Wine23:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Agne27. The adjective part (here a colour descriptor) of a varietal name is typically lowercase. Support move to Vidal blanc.--ColonelHenry (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is a proper noun which is why we capitalize Vidal (which is the grape cultivar itself) but the "blanc" is just a color descriptor. This is a standard convention that the Wine Project long adopted many years ago though its use in wine grape articles even predates the Wine Project. It's been a long work in progress and there are still many articles with inconsistent capitalization but, again, we're striving for consistency. With all new wine grape articles are being written in the standard format (See the upcoming Aubin vert, Balzac blanc, Béquignol noir, Camaraou noir, Enfariné noir, Gouget noir, Gueuche noir and Merlot blanc articles that will soon be written, etc), there really is no valid reason to keep this article with inconsistent capitalization. It is only going to become ever more increasingly an outlier. AgneCheese/Wine05:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I found it confusing as to whether the name is a two-word proper name. It is frequently used that way, but it seems to have no formal history. Am I correct that “Vidal Blanc noir” is impossible? Finally convincing was http://www.winegeeks.com/grapes/27 that used the “Vidal Blanc” compound name, but then says “or Vidal 256, or just Vidal as it is also known”. “Blanc” is just a descriptor. I would go for Rename “Vidal 256” with my preference for more precision. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Vidal blanc is much more WP:COMMONNAME than Vidal 256 which was its breeding code. I don't think a Vidal blanc noir is a possible (which would be both a white and black wine grape). There was once a Vidal noir created but it was never commercially released or used in any further grape breeding and is not mentioned in the National Grape Registry. AgneCheese/Wine00:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The scientific nomenclature, International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), is quite clear: varietal names of plants are written capitalized. The most complete and updated encyclopedia on grape varieties, Wine Grapes, published in 2012, is also consistent in capitalizing througout, i.e., they write Vidal Blanc rather than Vidal blanc. Therefore, so should we. Tomas e (talk) 13:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Tomas, as I mentioned on the project page, Wine Grapes is only following the personal convention of its main author Jancis Robinson. Other wine authors have their own convention including authors who don't capitalize anything at all. Also searching the latest edition of the ICNCP that you mention actually shows nothing relating to wine grapes with the terms Vitis vinifera, wine, noir or blanc not even appearing once in the 200+ page document. Conversely, we can look at other reliable sources like the University of California, Davis who maintains the National Grape Registry for the United States Department of Agriculture and see that they follow the "Capitalize cultivar, lowercase color descriptor" convention. Are they any less authoritative than Jancis Robinson or the wine authors who don't capitalize anything? There is no definitive right or wrong way. Rather, as noted above, the point is to be consistent and since 2005 the convention on Wikipedia has to be capitalize the cultivar but lowercase the color descriptor. AgneCheese/Wine16:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This variety would not even qualify for an article were it not for its use in winemaking. So we should similarly go with the capitalisation used in this field. Andrewa (talk) 18:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
COMMONNAME is based on common usage in reliable sources. Cap style is also subject to common usage. If one style is more prevalent than another in usage in reliable sources, then we should use that style, per COMMONNAME. --B2C23:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'm not a fan of slavishly adhering to the MOS:CAPS guideline in cases when it conflicts with authoritative sources. In the list of scholarly sources offered by Dicklyon, I see a mixture of capitalizations. Based on visual inspection of a handful of pages in that list, the dominant style appears to be uppercase name with lowercase color, so I agree that's what we should use. I wonder if we should convert this to a blanket RM to cover other grapes with colors, such as Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, etc. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As with B2C's comments, since there's no conflict between the MOS and the preferences of most others in this case, it's not a good time to get into MOS bashing. Dicklyon (talk) 00:22, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Expressing one's reasoning is not "bashing". All I did was recognize that MOS:CAPS supports this RM while stating a perfectly valid viewpoint that the MOS guideline isn't why I support this RM. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:33, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment- I was planning on putting a blanket RM at some point once I finished a few other wine article projects but if the time is right to do it now, I would support that and can help put together a list of articles that need to be moved to consistent capitalization. AgneCheese/Wine04:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
After combing through our 200+ created grape variety articles, I was pleasantly surprise at how few grape articles have an issue with inconsistent capitalization so if we do a blanket RM it is a fairly short list. Beside this article we have:
Considering how short the list is, I feel silly now for waiting so long to do the work to put in a blanket RM before. I thought our grape article capitalization issue was more a mess than it really is. While there are articles that have inconsistent capitalization within the body, the titles themselves are surprisingly consistent. AgneCheese/Wine22:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I second the idea of a blanket RM for these few pages which are inconsistent. Applying the above rationale for consensus, I will request G6 for all of these pages to make room for the move. Tiggerjay (talk) 05:41, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
