As I've said before about France, its systems have been copied around the world. This is particularly true for red wine in Bordeaux. Not all red wine in Bordeaux is high quality, which is reflective of the different choices available to winemakers, many of which will affect the final price.
Grape Selection
If you don't take into account the yearly changes in weather and its effect on different grape varieties, there are some standards of grape selection that Bordeaux wine makers deal with. The basic choice is between a wine that will mature early, and be ready to drink quickly, and one that will take much longer to become drinkable. If you're after the early maturing wine, more Merlot will be used, and if you want the longer maturing wine, you will use more Cabernet Sauvignon. Beyond that, the wine maker also has a choice of how to select the individual grapes at harvest time. One option is called a green harvest (vendange verte) in which grapes are picked before harvest, to lower yields and increase the sugar level in the final grapes. Additionally, grapes can be hand selected by people after the grapes are harvested. Each of these stages will of course add to the final cost of the wine.
Fermentation
Historically, if the wine were to be age-worthy, some of the stalks would be added to the fermentation vessel to increase the amount of tannins in the wine. This practice has become less common, and depends on the nature of the vintage. The traditional fermentation vessel was made of oak, but nowadays, stainless steel is used almost exclusively. Individual grape varieties to be used in blends are fermented seperately.
Aging and Blending
The highest quality red wine in Bordeaux is aged in new oak barrels, for as long as 24 months. Lower quality vineyards may use second-hand barrels, which do not impart as much flavor and body to the wine. Some vineyard may not use oak at all. At some point in the midst of the aging process, the different varietals will be blended together, according to what happened with the weather that year, and the type of wine being produced. Many Châteaux have a second or even third wine that they produce from wines that are rejected while tested during the aging process. Sometimes these wines are also sold in bulk to be sold by other producers.
