or as a base wine for Sekt. Those who own vineyards in truly good locations also have the option of renting them out to larger producers to operate. A total of 5,864 vineyard owners owned more than 5 ha each in 2016, accounting for 81% of Germany's total vineyard surface, and it is in this category that the full-time vintners and commercial operations are primarily found. However, truly large wineries, in terms of their own vineyard holdings, are rare in Germany. Hardly any German wineries reach the size of New World winemaking companies, and only a few are of the same size as a typical Bordeaux Grand Cru Classé château. Of the ten wineries considered as Germany's best by Gault Millau Weinguide in 2007, nine had 10,2 — 19 ha of vineyards, and one (Weingut Robert Weil, owned by Suntory) had 70 ha. This means that most of the high-ranking German wineries each only produces around 100,000 bottles of wine per year. That production is often distributed over, say, 10–25 different wines from different vineyards, of different Prädikat, sweetness and so on. The largest vineyard owner is the Hessian State Wineries (Hessische Staatsweingüter), owned by the state of Hesse, with 200 ha vineyards, the produce of which is vinified in three separate wineries. The largest privately held winery is Dr. Bürklin-Wolf in the Palatinate with 85,5 ha. Largest German wineries By April 2014, the ten largest German wine producers were: Weingut Lergenmüller Hainfeld (Palatinate), 110 ha; and Schloss Reinhartshausen, 80 ha Juliusspital, Würzburg (Franken), 170 ha Weingut Heinz Pfaffmann, Walsheim (Palatinate), 150 ha Hessische Staatsweingüter Eltville (Rheingau), 140 ha Markgraf von Baden Salem (Baden), 140 ha Bischöfliche Weingüter Trier (Mosel), 95 ha Staatlicher Hofkeller Würzburg (Franconia), 120 ha Weingut Anselmann Edesheim (Palatinate), 115 ha Bürgerspital zum Heiligen Geist Würzburg (Franconia), 110 ha Weingut Friedrich Kiefer Eichstetten am Kaiserstuhl (Baden), 110 ha See also German cuisine Flurbereinigung Old World wine Austrian wine Swiss wine References Citations General sources Barr, Andrew (1988). Wine Snobbery: An Insiders Guide to the Booze Business. . Chapter 8 on history of sweetness in German wines. Brook, Stephen (2006). The Wines of Germany. . Hallgarten, S.F. (1981). German Wines. . Langenbach, Alfred (1962). German Wines and Vines. Vista Books. . Reinhardt, Stephan (2012). The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines''. . External links German Wine Manual by German Wine