Well, what would you do? After a decade’s work getting the vineyards into balance, renovating the cellar and creating a name for the domain, nature has toyed with perfection this year, and you’ve got the best fruit you’ve ever harvested fermenting in vats at the moment. The scents are irresistible – dark fruit liqueurs, and an armful of flowers. The black-purple colours continue to stain your teeth, your hands and your dreams when you finally crash into bed at night. Some of the vineyard parcels, you now realise, are outstanding, so you’re thinking of extending the maceration a little longer than usual this year, and you’ve bought some extra new oak. And … then what?

It’s a question every wine producer must face sooner or later. How do you divide your harvest in order to maximise quality, income and reputation?

There were once two models; now there are three. The first is the Bordeaux solution, for which we have to thank Emile Peynaud in large part: the finest components become the grand vin, with everything which isn’t quite as good composing a second wine, and anything sub-standard being sold off in bulk.

The second solution is that typified by Burgundy: all the best wine is sold according to vineyard name, with the rest blended less specifically.

And we could, increasingly, call the third solution the Rhône way: super-cuvées. Tiny quantities, in other words, of the finest fruit plucked from the heart of the rest, cossetted through vinification and then lavished with oak before being given a heart-tugging, cap-doffing name which respects the humbler work of those who have gone before with a wine whose style none of them would recognise.

Grand vin, single vineyard, super-cuvée: which is it to be?

Let’s set aside the question of income, though I’m sure it would make a dandy maths exam poser. (“Jean, Didier and Pascal have just made their 2009 vintage. Jean hopes to price 58% of his harvest at three times the price of the remaining 42%, whereas Didier will sell his entire harvest in 5% segments whose price differential makes the top 30% worth seven times the bottom 10%. Pascal intends to sell the top 10% at ten times the price of the remaining 90%. Whose bank manager will be happiest?”)

The single vineyard option would, no doubt, get the purist vote, and is unquestionably the best solution if the sites in question are indeed distinguished (usefully defined by Brian Croser as a site which “allows the creation of a wine of unique and consistent quality and style from grape varieties best suited to that site”). Many sites, though, aren’t distinguished in that sense, even in Burgundy, and selling three single-vineyard wines which resemble each other is just pointless complication.

The super-cuvée option is a kind of monster created by the rise of wine criticism and point-scoring. Such wines are undeniably impressive. They impress, though, by the accumulation of qualities (easy to score) rather than by the disposition of qualities (harder to score, unless you’re drinking rather than tasting). Big points mean big prices, so I understand why producers are tempted to make such wines. As a consumer, though, I feel short changed – when I buy the ‘classique’ or the ‘domain’ wine and it ain’t what it used to be because all the best ingredients are showing off their muscles in a posing pouch elsewhere; or when I lash out on a super-cuvée and find it tiresome to drink. As the years pass, I’m more attracted to disposition than accumulation. In wine, in work, in everything.

By far the best option for most, it seems to me, is to make a grand vin plus second wine (and third, if you want). So why is the example not more widely followed outside Bordeaux?

It may well be that, away from Bordeaux and its fabulous opening prices, the grand vin principle is indeed less remunerative than whacking out a couple of super-cuvées. It certainly requires self-discipline and an honest assessment of each year’s work. It’s tough for a small estate to make a second wine (though the 4.5-ha Lafleur still manages); and, in certain commercial cultures, the very notion of a ‘second wine’ may sound like an admission of failure.

How, though, does Bordeaux manage such fabulous opening prices? Lots of reasons, but the principle of making a disciplined and uncompromising grand vin has to be prominent among them. Its simplicity makes it easy to understand; and it helps create maximum consistency for a property while still respecting the distinctions of vintage and terroir. It’s a perfect building block for reputation. Thus Bordeaux grows ever more marketable, investible and bankable, in contrast to the situation created by the chaos and frenzy of super-cuvées and the false intellectual challenge of thousands of single-vineyard wines. Sometimes less really is more.