(Wine-Searcher) - Pull the cork on a $100 bottle of wine and an age-old question emerges along with the aromas: is this bottle worth 10 times as much as a $10 bottle?

While that final judgment rests with the person pulling the corks, there are certain costs related to different wines. Unfortunately, getting pricing data from wineries is notoriously difficult. Most wineries are privately held companies and are under no obligation to file quarterly reports or open their books to reporters.

But Bo Barrett, whose family owns Chateau Montelena in Napa Valley, is one producer who will talk openly about cost structures. Montelena makes a range of wines, including two Cabernet Sauvignons, a Napa Valley one, which sells for $50 in a shop or at the winery, and the Estate, which retails for $150 a bottle. Besides Montelena, Barrett also partners with his wife, Heidi Peterson Barrett to make Barrett & Barrett Cabernet, which sells for $250 a bottle.

For the winery, the highest gross margin by far is to sell to the consumer directly. A visitor who walks out with a bottle of the Napa Valley Estate Cabernet pays the full retail price, all of which goes to the winery. But the winery does have added costs on that bottle – or one sold through their mailing lists – such as staffing, inventory management, and credit card processing.

Barrett says that the Napa Cabernet, which does well in restaurants, is made to be priced at $100 on wine lists. In this instance, the winery sells the bottle to a distributor for about $19, depending on the state, a significant reduction from the direct sale. This price, also known as ex-cellars or FOB (“free on board”), encompasses all the winery costs, from vineyards to winery to sales and marketing, loans (if any), real estate and building maintenance, and administration. Montelena uses a national broker for sales and marketing, who channels the wine to distributors. Each distributor then sells it to retailers and restaurants for about $33. The retailer will likely sell it for the suggested price of $50, though they may undercut that by a few pennies (or dollars) or mark it up more, depending on their zip code and business model. Restaurants buy the wine for the same $33 and then put it on the list for $100.