German wine the best vineyards in Germany are steep vineyards overlooking rivers, where mechanisation is impossible and a lot of manual labour is needed to produce the wine. Since it can be difficult to get ripe grapes in such a northernly location as Germany, the sugar maturity of grapes (must weight) as measured by the Oechsle scale have played a great role in Germany. German vintners on average crop their vineyards quite high, with yields averaging around 64-99 hl/ha, a high figure in international comparison. "New" crossings used for low-quality white wine commonly yield 150-200 hl/ha, while quality-conscious producers who strive to
The Wine Advocate The Wine Advocate The Wine Advocate, fully known as Robert Parker's Wine Advocate and informally abbreviated TWA or WA or more recently as RP, is a global bimonthly wine publication based in the United States featuring the consumer advice of wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. Initially titled "The Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate" the first issue was published in 1978. Accepting no advertising, the newsletter publishes in excess of 12,000 reviews per year, utilizing Parker's rating system that employs a 50–100 point quality scale (Parker Points® or simply "RP"). These wine ratings have a significant effect on the sales of the