Why Is One Wine More Expensive than Another?

When you go for  dinner and you have to choose the wine, I bet that you think to yourself why does one bottle of wine costs Rp. 500 000 while another  wine is Rp. 20 000 000? An exact example is Chateau Pibran Versus Chateau Mouton Rothschild,  both stemming from the Pauillac area in Bordeaux in France.

There are many components which play a role in the pricing of a single bottle of wine. Some wine makers make better wines than others for the pure fact that they have better equipment in wine making and they have a longer and richer history.   So let us get into the details of the wine itself. Wine is perceived as being made from nature,  and in the cellar. It is then sold by professionals, such as Sommeliers, with the help of the press, and famous wine gurus like Mr. Parker or Mr. Jameson.

In Nature….
The older the vines, the  more minerals they get out of the soil, as the roots grow very deep, and therefore the wine taste fills the mouth better as it lingers longer. Chateau Pibran has vines with many grapes and therefore the harvest yield is higher. The best wineries have only one grape hanging from a  vine which makes for a very rich wine as the minerals from the soil are not shared with other grapes on that vine.

How was the harvest year and how was it handled?
If we refer to 1993, it was not a very good year for wines in  Bordeaux. Upon saying that, Mouton Rothschild from that year has a rating of around 90 points in their class of Premier Grand Cru Classe, whereas Chateau Pibran is below 80 points in their class of Cru Bourgeois. The reason for this is that it was a wet period during harvest however  is also said that only the premium wine producing Chateauxs made good wine, maybe due to the fact that they had the manpower, while  harvesting the grapes, to first sort by hand all the  leaves and foul grapes out of the harvest.

In the cellar:
Barriques are about  the size of a barrel and normally made from oak, they can hold about 225 litres. They are a very important component in producing great wines as they give Tannin and more structure to the wine. The kind of wood determines the quality of wine, and normally Barriques come from America and/or France.  Most wineries cannot afford the Barriques or do not know how to handle them in the right way. Interestingly, Chateaus like Pibran buy second hand barrels (one year old and even older) where the cost is about 20% to 30% of the real price (One new barrel can cost up to US$1000). Besides cost, the wine quality also depends on how matured it gets in barrels of different origins. So while Chateau Mouton Rothschild releases its wine  after 2 to 3 years, Chateau Pibran does so after 1 to 2 years.