This is a good question but it’s not so easy to answer as it depends on a multitude of factors. You need to consider how the vine is pruned, the age of the vine, the grape variety, the kind of wine, the weather conditions and most important of all, the desired quality, all have an effect on how much wine a vine can produce.
Mature, healthy vines produce more grapes than young vines although yields start to decline at around 25 years. A quality wine producer will prune their vines so that they produce less. A grower may do a green harvest, removing bunches of grapes midseason, which concentrates the remaining fruit.
Some grape varieties produce higher yields than others. Chardonnay and Merlot usually produce a decent yield, whereas Pinot Noir is notoriously fickle.
Then of course, the grower is at the mercy of the weather. A spring frost or summer hailstorm can devastate a crop, leaving yields severely diminished. A very dry season can lead to an increase in quality but fewer grapes. Some regions allow irrigation, others do not. A grower seeking to maximise volume will irrigate and fertilise heavily during the growing season.
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Taking all these factors into account, a vine can yield anything from 20 bottles of wine to a single glass. Obviously this has a bearing on how much your bottle of wine will cost. To produce a quality wine, it is accepted one vine can yield anything from 1.5 to 2.5 kilos of grapes, which translates into one to two bottles of wine per vine.
Sweet wines are generally harvested very late, and yields are notoriously low. Commentators believe that it takes one vine to produce a single glass of the luscious, sweet wine of Château d’Yquem in Sauternes, Bordeaux, one of the world’s greatest producers. Not surprisingly, the wine is not cheap; Wine-Searcher.com gives an average price of €400 a bottle excluding tax.
















