Not All Great Wine is Expensive.

Enjoying wine can be an expensive hobby. While it is true that price isn't always an indication of quality, it can be a good indication of the processes winemakers follow in order to produce their wine. Whatever the quality of the wine in the bottle, you can be sure that the more expensive bottles are subject to scrutinies that enhance the final product. If you ever find yourself in a bottle shop, unsure of what to buy, it can help to know some of these processes and the benefits they provide.

Low Yield

Low yield is a term used to describe wine made with fruit that is small and has a low water content. Low yields are desirable because the flavours are less diluted by water. Winemakers can produce vines with low yields by restricting the amount of water the vines get during ripening, and through vigorous pruning. Hot, dry conditions prior to harvest can also help. The additional work required in the vineyard will cost the winery more, and contribute to higher prices.

Single Vineyard

A winery will market a wine as single vineyard in order to display the unique characteristics of the region. Single vineyard literally means that all of the grapes for the wine came from the same block. These wines will give drinkers a feeling for terroir. Terroir is the effect that the geography, geology and climate have on the vines, and can be explored by comparing single vineyard wines from the same region, or the same varietal from different regions.

Hand-Picked

Hand-picking has a number of advantages. These advantages all relate to the quality and integrity of the grapes prior to the production of the wine. Hand-picking will allow winemakers to remove the MOG's (matter other than grapes) that are picked up by machine harvesters. It will also allow the winemakers to excise bunch rot, and sub standard grapes. Hand-picking is significantly more expensive than machine harvesting.

Free-Run

Free-run refers to juice that requires little to no pressure to be extracted from the grapes. This juice is of far superior quality. Juice that requires a significant amount of pressure to extract is often bitter, and will negatively effect the taste of the wine. 

Wines that exhibit these characteristics won't always break the budget, and great wines won't necessarily have all of these in common. There are also other terms that can provide hints into the wine-making processes, but these four are the ones that I look for most often.