Does more expensive wine have more alcohol content?

Question

And y are they more pricey?

Answer 1

price and alcohol content aren't related, with the exception that depending on where you live a fortified wine like port, sherry or madeira may have more excise taxes factored into it. the only other price / alcohol relationship would be more incidental, like with a hot climate grape like zinfandel or cabernet sauvignon, grown by a prestigious, artisanal winery clocking in at a higher alcohol level simply because the grapes were extremely ripe that year (which is always a good thing with any grapes -- the more ripeness the location and year permit the better, but it's always a gamble with weather). hotter climates have longer growing seasons and yield riper grapes, riper grapes have more sugars, and more sugars mean more alcohol if the winemaker chooses to let nature take its course with the yeasts and style of wine he wants to make. conversely not everything grown in a hotter climate will necessarily equal a great, artisanal wine with a high price tag (but it will still likely have higher alcohol unless the winemaker intervenes as a stylistic choice).

what makes a wine more pricey is a combination of factors that can include more labor-intensive methods used in the growing of the grapes and/or production of the wine, a lower case production, higher land costs depending on location. the case count of a winery relates to supply and demand (a lot of people seeking a small amount of the wine) and the fact that a lower case count winery is generally also employing the more labor intensive methods than what factory wineries use to turn out basic mass produced wines. smaller production wineries are generally more concerned with producing a work of art than a commodity. at the same time a small winery in a nontraditional wine region may not be producing a better wine but still have higher costs associated with things like fungicides because it grows grapes that don't belong in that region, and they are ignoring nature.

sometimes reputation may rightly or wrongly be something the winery is trading on (maybe the winery made good wine 100 years ago and doesn't now but is still pricing according to its historic valuation). some wineries may produce fairly ordinary wine but inflate the price simply to give the perception of a higher quality product.

with imports, the valuation of the dollar to that country's currency may or may not offset the extra transport costs. that country's regulations of its wine industry may also factor in.

weather factors in anything agricultural, so when the weather was exceptional in a given year, that inflates the price (because ostensibly it also increased the quality of the wine).

carrying inventory increases the costs of ageworthy red wines. the winery (or another party) has its costs of cellaring the wine for an extended amount of time before releasing it to the public, and thus passes on that cost to the final purchaser of the wine.

it's really basic economics like with any other industry.

a restaurant also places an arbitrary markup that exceeds that of retail on all wines it serves.

caution: dryness is related to to higher alcohol IF you had alot of sugars to begin with. if the grapes weren't very ripe, yielding fewer sugars, and you fermented all that sugar to complete dryness, you may still have a lower alcohol final wine.

Answer 2

No. average alcohol content of wine is 10-13% per bottle. Price depends on the type of grape used, the amount of time needed to produce the wine, process in producing the wine, quality, supply and demand, and brand name.

Answer 3

I don't think it would really have more alcohol content, though if you want to figure that out, you'd just have to look at the bottle. It should say on the front.
As for why they cost more, that has more to do with brands, and location of where it was made. Some brands cost more, and obviously foreign imports might also cost more.

Answer 4

The price of wine has no correlation with alcohol content. The price varies based on its origins, vineyards, vintage and comments by Mr. Robert Parker.

Answer 5

Consider that the wines with the highest alcohol quantities are usually the ones like "nighttrain" "thunderbird" and such. Vintage - last tuesday, 2 o'clock. And are the ones in the brown paper bag that guy who asked you for a quarter was holding.

Answer 6

The more dry the wine is the higher the content. The more sweet the less.

Answer 7

not necessarily, they are expensive usually because of their age. a mature, aged wine is expensice, versus a table wine which was made a couple of weeks/months back.
"One wine connoisseur has just bought what is thought to be the most expensive bottle of white wine in the world at $100,000 (GBP55,000): a 1787 vintage Sauternes from Chateau Yquem. " 1787 was the year that wine was made!!!!

Answer 8

Answer is No. Price depends on year, brand, country etc. It's a complex mix of many parameters. Alcohol is usually between 11 and 15% depending on where it comes from.

Answer 9

No, it mostly depends on the type of grapes, the country, the brand, the year, etc. They all content approximately the same alcohol degrees.

Answer 10

More expensive wine tastes like liquid Big Macs I think.