THE LUXURY EDIT

What’s really behind the price tag when it comes to high-end wine

While you might not hesitate at splurging over $50 on a bottle of champagne, spending the same on a bottle of wine makes us pause and consider whether it’s really worth it. Why is this?

There can often be an assumption that you’re just as likely to enjoy a $30 bottle of wine as you are an $80 bottle. While that may be true on occasion, sometimes it’s worth splashing out that little bit extra so you can sit down and really savour the small nuances and labour that has gone into that bottle.

Several factors make producing wine more expensive. These include oak, time and terroir.

OAK AGEING

Maturing in oak barrels adds various aroma compounds to wine, which can impart such notes as vanilla, spice, clove, caramel or smokiness. Wines that have been aged longer have softer tannins and lower acidity, making them more palatable. Oak barrels don’t come cheap though, with French costing more than their American counterparts. The barrels usually need replacing every few years as they start to lose their “oakiness”. This is one of the reasons less expensive wines are sometimes aged in stainless steel barrels.

TERROIR

This is where the wine is made – the soil, geography and climate. Small-batch boutique wines often use higher quality, low-yielding grapes that are hand-harvested using little or no residual sugars, which gives us a higher quality product with depth and concentration.

TIME

Hand-harvesting is slow and labour intensive yet it ensures nothing but the best grape is in your top-shelf bottle of wine. Premium wines are also released aged, which means they have been stored in temperature and humidity-controlled cellars and sealed before being released to the consumer.

If your aim is to start with a premium cellar, then beginning with a quality product will ensure you reap the rewards in a few years time. Start slow, do your research and above all, enjoy!