Talk:Ernest Singer

BruceThomson (talk) 06:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

notability
Hey, @BruceThomson, can you point me at the three best sources for proving notability? What I'm looking for is significant coverage in independent reliable sources that are outside of the local area and outside of industry-niche publications. Valereee (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Valereee. The best source is the New York Times article because it is respected and international . Next come the two Japan Times articles: and . The Japan Times is a national newspaper, deemed reliable at New_page_patrol_source_guide.
 * After that, the Decanter article is good, but it's difficult to judge whether they are an independent source . The Forbes Japan article is likely paid publicity. The Chubu University pages are written by a collaboration partner, so not independent. Other sources don't mention the subject at all, but are there to support facts in the article. BruceThomson (talk) 04:12, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @BruceThomson, I would agree the NYT article goes toward supporting a claim to notability. It's not necessarily a better source because it is respected and international, though that's always helpful. It's a good source because it provides significant coverage of the article subject himself, as well as because it's a source overwhelmingly considered reliable. The key here is the significant coverage.
 * The first Japan Times article, it's hard for me to tell because it's behind a paywall. I see that Mr. Singer is mentioned at least four times in the article. And JT is a reliable source. This article may represent significant coverage, but because you're a paid contributor, I'll need to see more. If it's possible for you to email me that article, I'll take a look. There's a link to my email on my user talk. The second JT article, same problem. While it only mentions Singer by name twice, the first sentence mentions him, so there may be significant coverage, but I need to see more.
 * The bigger problem is that the other sources don't mention the subject at all. It's fine to use such sources to fill in details, but I'm seeing, for instance, the entire paragraph on the Virus-free Vines Project is cited to a source that doesn't mention Singer, so how are you supporting the first sentence that he's involved? Also that source is Chubu University itself, which as you say would be an affiliated source, which means it can't be used to support notability of the subject even if it did mention him. And this source, since it doesn't even mention Singer, can't be used to say anything about him. I see similar possible issues in other paragraphs, such as that the statement "Even so, in 2008, Singer's Koshu wine "Shizen Cuvee Denis Dubourdieu" was the first Japanese wine to be accepted by the EU for import", which doesn't have its own citation. The following citation is to the JT. If that JT article doesn't say that, we can't either.
 * What I really would like to see for notability is at least one more reliable, independent source that covers Singer in as much detail as the NYT does. I do think this subject is likely notable, but we need to prove that first; I always recommend that people use only sources that would go to supporting notability for their draft. More sources are not better because checking them makes more work for volunteers who have their own projects to work on and aren't necessarily interested in helping people get paid for work we do for free.
 * At any rate, send me the JT articles. I'm currently travelling so it may take a couple of days for me to get to them. If I don't come back in a few days, ping me here. Once you've proven notability, you can work on trimming the article to meet editorial guidelines. Valereee (talk) 12:41, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello Valereee,
 * I have sent the two Japan Times articles to you by email from your talk page.
 * I understand your concern with the Chubu University section. The first source I have for that mentions a cooperation with Singer's wine import company Millesimes beginning in 2004. When he first started making his own wine he did not have a company for that, so some articles mention Millesimes which is his wine importing company. In 2007 he finally founded a company for the winery, which was renamed in 2012. The link I originally used for Chubu University has a nice video of their visit to the winery to check on their vines, but that source uses the company name Fujisan Winery.
 * As for other sources, I believe that I have sourced every statement of fact in the article. If several sentences in a row are covered by the same source I only put the citation at the end rather than for each sentence. I will go through the article again today to make sure I didn't miss anything.
 * The first submission of this article was declined because of notability, so before I submitted the article the second time I took the advice I found in a Wikipeda essay that suggested hiding all the citations except for the few that are needed to establish notability. I did that, and left a note on this talk page to say what I had done. What happened though was that the reviewer seems to have agreed that the subject was notable, but rejected the article for being insufficiently sourced. So I unhid all the citations but made sure that the citations to establish notabilty were at the top of the article before I submitted it this time. In an ideal world the article submission process should probably ask the author for his best sources.
 * Thanks, BruceThomson (talk) 03:27, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I have gone through the article again to clean up the citations and remove things that went beyond what the sources said. BruceThomson (talk) 09:50, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Bruce, the two JT articles do indeed get this subject over the hump for notability. I'm ready to move to article space, but I'd like to confirm that you've removed anything that isn't in sources -- I just, for instance, put a cn into the virus-free vines para, as it didn't have a source on that sentence.
 * Once this moves to article space, you'll need to stop editing directly and only make edit requests here on the talk. Valereee (talk) 17:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Valereee, Thanks for all your help. I spent several hours yesterday checking the text against the sources to make sure there was a good match. There are two remaining concerns:
 * As you pointed out, there are is no single source that shows that Singer had a long-term collaberation with Chubu University. What we can say from the sources is that the University considered Millesimes to be a collaborator in 2004 and that Millesimes requested UC Davis to analyze the DNA of Koshu, that employees from two of Singer's companies and someone from the University jointly developed a process for making virus-free vines and published a paper on this in 2022, mentioning Singer in the acknowledements, and that as of 2022 Fujisan Winery had cooperated with the university for over 10 years to make virus-free vines. So one way to summarize this might be to say "Since 2004, employees of Singer's companies have participated in various research activities with Chubu University related to the Koshu grape." Or perhaps you can think of a more elegant way.
 * In the lead paragraph, it says "He produced the first Japanese wine approved for import into the EU" but for the first-time reader it is difficult to get this from the sources because the first one mentions Dubourdieu and not Singer. I suggest that we change this to "Aided by oenologist Denis Dubourdieu he produced the first Japanese wine approved for import into the EU. The second source clarifies who was involved in making the wine and mentions the import approval but doesn't say that it was "first".
 * BruceThomson (talk) 02:01, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Singer and his companies
The article is about Ernest Singer, but sources also mention his companies, making it tricky to write the article in a comprehensible way without violating WP:NOR. Here I put together a timeline to clarify things.


 * In 2000 Singer started a wine importing company named Millesimes.(a primary source also exists).
 * In 2003 The Japan Wine Project was founded with the mission of developing world class Koshu wines to match Japanese cuisine.
 * This was a small team headed by Singer and including Singer's family members and Millesimes employees.
 * In 2004 Singer's company Millesimes (a Chubu University collaborator) asked UC Davis to analyze the Koshu grape's DNA.
 * The collaboration was managed by the Japan Wine Project team.
 * In May 2007 Singer founded the Asagiri Wine Company.(a primary source also exists)
 * The Japan Wine Project team members were the first employees of the company and the company took over all winemaking activities.
 * In January 2008, the wine "Shizen 2006, Cuvee Denis Dubordieu" made by consultant Denis Dubourdieu at the Asagiri Wine Company became the first Japanese wine to be approved by the EU for import.
 * An article about Singer describes him as "the man behind Shizen" and mentions the 2008 import approval.
 * In 2012 Asagiri Wine Company was renamed to Fujisan Winery.(a primary source also exists)
 * In September 2019, Chubu University wrote about making their "Hakua" wine, saying that it was made possible by "a Tokyo wine importer (a winery in Yamanashi)".
 * The wine importer was Millesimes and the winery was Fujisan Winery. At the time Fujisan Winery was growing all its grapes in Yamanashi.
 * In 2021 Authors from Asagiri Agriculture, Chubu University, Millesimes and one other organization published a paper detailing their studies of methods to eliminate viruses in Koshu grapes. The acknowledgements section thanks Singer for "valuable comments and encouragement."
 * Asagiri Agriculture was a subsidiary of Millesimes but it has been closed.(a primary source exists) Singer was its president.
 * The Makioka3 vineyard mentioned in the study belongs to Fujisan Winery.
 * In July 2022, the Chubu University Wine Project team visited Fujisan Winery and made a YouTube video of their visit. The video says that their students harvested grapes in Yamanashi and brought them to Fujisan Winery to be vinified to create the University's "Hakua" wine. Also Fujisan Winery greenhouses growing non-virus vines are shown.
 * The grapes for Hakua were grown in Fujisan Winery's Yamanashi vineyards.
 * The non-virus vines were created by Chubu University and are being grown in greenhouses at Fujisan Winery until they are big enough to be transplanted to a vineyard.
 * In November 2022, a winemaker from Golan Heights Winery in Israel visited Chubu University. He explained details of making virus-free vines.
 * Golan Heights has been a Millesimes supplier for many years. Singer introduced Golan Heights to Chubu University. Two people in the photos are Fujisan Winery employees.
 * In November 2022, Fujisan Winery announced a cooperation with Golan Heights Winery to mass produce virus-free vines. Fujisan Winery has been cooperating with Chubu University for about ten years on this.
 * The collaboration with Chubu University was continuous since 2004 and is still in progress. The team members managing the collaboration were unchanged since 2003.

BruceThomson (talk) 03:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest Edit Request
In 2015 wine critic Oz Clarke wrote: "Some fairly interesting Japanese wine is made from Koshu, a pinkskinned predominantly vinifera grape, believed to have come from Japan from Europe many centuries ago, via the Silk Road. Koshu usually produces a clean, dry, light-bodied wine with a delicate citrus character that pairs very well with sushi and sashimi."
 * What I think should be changed: Add a third paragraph to the Koshu grape section as follows:


 * Why it should be changed: There is not much other information in the article about what the wine tastes like. This is because comments in other referenced sources cannot be considered neutral. This new Oz Clarke quote seems to be the only one that is reliable and independent. Clarke goes on to list specific wineries (including Asagiri Wine Company, Ernest Singer's winery) but this information is probably not needed here.


 * References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button): I have uploaded a PDF of the relevant page here.

BruceThomson (talk) 03:53, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: This violates WP:NPOV, as it presents the opinion of a single individual as the definitive consensus on the matter. Much more widespread reporting is required to include such an opinion, and even then, it should be clear that the content in the article is a reflection of the opinions of reviewers. Actualcpscm (talk) 23:36, 19 March 2023 (UTC)


 * OK, thank you. BruceThomson (talk) 01:36, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Edit Request

 * What I think should be changed: Add a new section after the "Virus-free vines project" section as follows:

Construction of café and auberge at the winery
The winery plans to develop a large wine resort with the support of the national and local governments. Construction of a café and auberge are planned for completion in August 2023. At first there will be just one room for overnight guests, with additional expansion after that. The winery is now hiring and hopes to use domestic wine production to revitalize local agriculture and increase employment.


 * Why it should be changed: This new construction was begun after the original article was written. It will more than double the size of the winery.


 * References supporting the possible change:

BruceThomson (talk) 07:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Please cite reliable, secondary sources, and avoid press releases. Best regards, -- Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 19:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)


 * OK, thank you. BruceThomson (talk) 00:54, 7 May 2023 (UTC)