German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germany, along the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Roman era. Approximately 60 percent of the German wine production is situated in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where 6 of the 13 regions (Anbaugebiete) for quality wine are situated. Germany has about 102,000 hectares (252,000 acres or 1,020 square kilometers) of vineyard, which is around one tenth of the vineyard surface in Spain, France or Italy. The total wine production is usually around 9 million hectoliters annually, corresponding to 1.2 billion bottles, which places Germany as the eighth largest wine-producing country in the world.White wine accounts for almost two thirds of the total production.

As a wine country, Germany has a mixed reputation internationally, with some consumers on the export markets associating Germany with the world's most elegant and aromatically pure white wines while other see the country mainly as the source of cheap, mass-market semi-sweet wines such as Liebfraumilch. Among enthusiasts, Germany's reputation is primarily based on wines made from the Riesling grape variety, which at its best is used for aromatic, fruity and elegant white wines that range from very crisp and dry to well-balanced, sweet and of enormous aromatic concentration. While primarily a white wine country, red wine production surged in the 1990s and early 2000s, primarily fuelled by domestic demand, and the proportion of the German vineyards devoted to the cultivation of dark-skinned grape varieties has now stabilized at slightly more than a third of the total surface. For the red wines, Spätburgunder, the domestic name for Pinot Noir, is in the lead.

Jancis Mary Robinson OBE, MW (born in Cumbria on 22 April 1950) is a British wine critic, journalist and editor of wine literature. She currently writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, and writes for her website JancisRobinson.com. She also provides advice for Queen Elizabeth II's wine cellar.

Robinson studied mathematics and philosophy at Oxford University and worked for a travel company after leaving university. Robinson started her wine writing career on 1 December 1975 when she became assistant editor for the trade magazine Wine & Spirit. In 1984 she became the first person outside the wine trade to become a Master of Wine. She also served as British Airways' wine consultant, and supervised the BA Concorde cellar luxury selection.

As a wine writer, she has become one of the world's leading writers of educational and encyclopedic material on wine. The Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Robinson, is widely considered to be the most comprehensive wine encyclopedia in the world. The first edition was published in 1994, and took five years to write after she was signed on as editor in 1988. In addition, The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Robinson is one of the world's leading wine atlases.

Kevin Zraly is an American wine educator and the founder of the Windows on the World Wine School, who has been described as America's most famous and entertaining wine teacher.

Between 1976 and 2001, Zraly held the position of wine director for the Windows on the World restaurant, on the top floors of New York's 1 WTC World Trade Center, America's top-grossing restaurant. Zraly was hired by Joe Baum whilst a 25-year-old wine salesman and self-educated oenophile with a bachelor’s degree in education from SUNY New Paltz, and is since credited with introducing California wine to the American public, as well as helping to pioneer the use of progressive markup on wine in US restaurants. After the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the school relocated to the New York Marriott Marquis.

Zraly's book Windows on the World Complete Wine Course with its annual updates, is among America's best-selling wine books selling over 3 million copies worldwide, and Kevin Zraly's American Wine Guide (2006) is the first book that deals comprehensively with all 50 states as modern wine-producing states. Kevin's latest book, The Ultimate Wine Companion, will be released in November 2010.