We use this book constantly in our tasting room. I have years of experience in the wine industry and I'm always running to Schoonmaker to answer all kinds of obscure questions that our customers come up with. The format hits the major points of each topic without opinion or prejudice - how refreshing to get the facts without the hype on a subject that is over-hyped to begin with!

I cut my own wine-loving teeth on an earlier edition of this excellent encyclopedia, literally reading it from cover to cover over a weekend when I was first excitedly discovering the wine hobby. Alexis (not Alex) Bespaloff's revision (and his editors) unfortunately took a lot of the guts out of the old book -- along with adding in much new information about New World wines -- but it's still a useful reference, arguably the one single-volume encyclopedia a wine lover ought to have if you can have only one

This is the 2nd edition, released in 1983, of Frank Schoonmaker's original classic from 1956. Schoonmaker's familiarity with the subject matter goes all the way back to the 1930s, although Peter Sichel has now issued a newer edition. Needless to say there have been many changes in the German wine scene over the last 17 years or so - not the least of which is the emergence of Weingut Robert Weil in Kiedrich as the unofficial King of the Rheingau - but it still offers a thorough and scholarly assessment of the time. I absolutely concur with the author's assertion that the top vintages in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, then and now, can produce wines, from the best vinyards, that stand comparison with anything the rest of the world has to offer. He places Egon Muller's holdings in the Scharzhofberg vinyard in Wiltingen right at the top, which might have been true in 1971, but today Fritz Haag's wines from the Juffer-Sonnenuhr vinyard in Brauneburg are worthy to rank alongside him in that position.

The book does an excellent job of explaining the fundamentals of the German wine law and labeling system, which can be off-putting to the novice. It covers all the major and minor wine regions of what was West Germany at the time, and all the varietals. Then as now, Riesling is still the grape of choice. The vintage chart goes back from 1982 into the 1970s, which could come in handy.

This is recommended as a supplementary reference source, but the newer 3rd edition should be sought out first.