system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:What makes certain wine unbelievably expensive?



So like, why do some wines, made in recent years, sell for over $10,000 but wines made from vineyards just down the road, which experienced near identical weather conditions, sell for less than $50. 


Is it entirely down to the manufacturing process, and if it is, how can the price gap be so wide? Or is it more down to the name a vineyard has.


If anyone actually has any experience working in a vineyard and can explain the process better than wikipedia, that'd be swell.
gpt
The price gap is supply and demand, for certain prestigious brands.

So first of all, wine comes from grapes; and grape quality is dependent on many factors. Weather of course, but also soil, water, light, heat, and grower skill/decisions. AND of course, the actual grape vine.

Old vines produce less fruit - thus, smaller production, BUT generally more concentrated and intense. Younger vines produce more fruit, but you have to prune them - the amount of pruning affects the concentration and quality of the juice you get. If your options are 'n' cases of wine at $60/case (wholesale) or 'n/3' cases at $120, you're probably going to prune sparingly to get as much juice and wine as possible, without creating garbage. On the other hand, if you can make truly great wine and have a name for yourself, then the options are 'n/3' cases at $1000, or 'n' cases at $1000 - for a year or two, and then the price per case drops down to $100 because nobody trusts you anymore.

Then you factor in the slope of your land and composition of the soil (acidity, water retention or runoff), the light, the use of pesticides, mulch, etc.. 

So now you have some amount of good-quality grapes. How do you make wine? Do you make wine that's going to mature over 10-50 years, or wine that's going to be drinkable about the time it hits the market, late next year (like about 90% of the wine sold)? The former leads to more expensive wine, and is harder to sell - BUT if done well, can establish you over time as a top-notch winemaker. Or drive you into bankruptcy even sooner.

So this pretty much determines the pricing for most wines between $8 and $80. Above that, things get...complicated.

If you're in Bordeaux for instance, your vinyard is likely ranked by the government. Your wine has to meet certain standards of quality and composition, and much of it is historical. There are, for instance, only five first-growth houses, and only one of them was not defined as such in 1855. (Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, which got promoted in 1973). If you're one off those, or one of a limited few others who have a similar cachet, you can pretty much name your price. The thing is, most of their wine is sold on futures at auction, so basically it's "as much as someone is willing to pay."