Originally Posted by RebelR
Price is determined by many factors. Everything from the cost of the grapes, since certain vineyards are in better locations, or are older vines. Some grapes have lower yields or are more prone to disease, or inclement weather. Some methods of making wine.
Generally what allows wines to stay relatively price neutral from year to year, is that in times of good weather, they have more volume of quality grapes to make great wine, vs in off years where there would be less grapes used to maintain the quality and integrity of the product. They have to allow for some variance in quality, and can't keep changing the price year to year.
Sometimes price is raised because demand for the product rises and they can justify a price hike, or a wine gains acclaim by a notable magazine etc. The oddest reason ever, came when I was buying wine for a restaurant years ago. It was at a Californian Wine institute tasting, they were pushing the '94 vintage, and '95's were in barrel. I met this one winemaker with an exceptional cabernet. He was relatively new and I asked him how much his wine sold for, and he grinned and said "if you had asked me that last year, I would have said $28/bottle, this year, it's $100" It was a bargain at the $28, and it certainly stood up to the $100 cabs, but more profound was his justification on why he changed the price. Apparently at $28, he couldn't move any volume. It didn't get any traction at that price point. After raising the price to $100, he sold all of the current vintage, plus the remnant stock from the previous vintage. He was happy selling it for the lower price, and made great money off of it. But as I have found with certain groups of wine snobs, the higher price gives off an assumption of quality.
What I think your post may be directed at, are mainly Bordeaux being sold "en Premiere" while it's still in the barrel. Based on how the growing season went and what the harvest was like, wine buyers speculate on what the quality of the wine before it's bottled. Similar to wines like Port, where only in certain years with they Declare a vintage worthy of making Vintage port. Declarations used to be more infrequent, but since the 90's only about 30% of vintages have not been made.
In the new world wines, prices are far more stable.
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