--- title: Wine Day: Julia Child, William Safire and the Word on Wine description: A letter from the cook to the language expert has recently been made available to the public as part of the digitization of Safire's papers. canonical: https://time.com/4680109/julia-child-william-safire-wine/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-24T15:00:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T11:37:33.000Z article:section: History og:title: Wine Day: Julia Child, William Safire and the Word on Wine og:description: A letter from the cook to the language expert has recently been made available og:url: https://time.com/4680109/julia-child-william-safire-wine/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Wine Day: Julia Child, William Safire and the Word on Wine twitter:description: A letter from the cook to the language expert has recently been made available twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Read Julia Child's Letter to William Safire on How to Correctly Capitalize the Names of Wines  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Updated: Dec 13, 2023 11:37 AM UTCPublished: May 24, 2017 3:00 PM UTC  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Updated: Dec 13, 2023 11:37 AM UTCPublished: May 24, 2017 3:00 PM UTC The letters of the columnist and speechwriter [William Safire](http://time.com/vault/issue/1990-02-12/page/68/) have recently been [digitized](http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/s/safire%5Fw.htm) by the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries, making available a wide range of correspondence, including letters with people ranging from President Dwight D. [Eisenhower](http://time.com/vault/issue/1956-11-26/page/19/) to actor Charlton [Heston](http://time.com/4430862/ben-hur-original-photos/). But one particular letter is worth resurfacing this week, for National Wine Day on Thursday. In August of 1985, Safire devoted his On Language column in the New York _Times_ to the issue of, as he put it, “wine without caps.” At issue was the question of which kinds of [wines](http://time.com/money/3945008/great-wines-under-25/) had their names capitalized and which didn’t. Though dictionaries differed on the rules, Safire acknowledged, he decided to lay down the law. The simplified version of Safire’s [rules of wine capitalization](http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/25/magazine/on-language-wines-without-caps.html) is as follows: Wines that are named precisely after the place from whence they come retain their uppercased beginnings; wine names that are the names of _other_ places, or that are related to but not precisely place names, do not (for example, he said, chianti from California); kinds of grapes are generally not capitalized. “Think up before you drink up,” Safire wrote. Not long after, he received this appreciative note from someone who had reason to understand why his rules mattered:  A letter from Julia Child to William Safire William Safire Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) The digitized portion of William Safire collection at Syracuse University can be browsed at the [Syracuse University Libraries website.](http://scrconline.syr.edu/xtf/search?brand=scrc;repository=scrc;f1-collection=William%20Safire%20Papers) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4680109/julia-child-william-safire-wine/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4680109/julia-child-william-safire-wine/"},"headline":"Read Julia Child's Letter to William Safire on How to Correctly Capitalize the Names of Wines","datePublished":"2017-05-24T15:00:17.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T11:37:33.000Z","description":"A letter from the cook to the language expert has recently been made available to the public","url":"https://time.com/4680109/julia-child-william-safire-wine/","keywords":["language","food and drink"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/language/","name":"language"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4680109/julia-child-william-safire-wine/","name":"Read Julia Child's Letter to William Safire on How to Correctly Capitalize the Names of Wines"}}]}] ```