Not every handmade rug is built the same way, and "handloom" is one of the terms that gets used loosely. A handloom rug is woven, not tufted — warp and weft threads are interlaced by hand on a traditional loom, the same basic principle behind a dhurrie or kilim, just executed with finer control.
The result is structurally different from a tufted rug. There's no pile built up with a tufting gun and no separate backing glued on underneath — the rug is the weave, all the way through. That makes handloom pieces flatter, lighter, and fully reversible, which is part of why they layer so well over another rug or a jute base without adding bulk.
It also changes how a piece wears. A tufted rug's texture comes from tuft height and pile density; a handloom rug's character comes from the weave itself — visible banding, subtle tonal shifts row to row, the texture of the yarn. Wine Braid shows this clearly: a solid, tonally graded burgundy field woven flat, framed by a thick braided jute border that's knotted separately and stitched on.
Neither construction is "better" outright — they're suited to different rooms. A tufted rug with real pile height reads plush and anchors a seating area; a handloom piece sits low and quiet, which is exactly what you want under a console table, in a hallway, or layered as a base note under something busier. If you're choosing between the two, the honest question isn't which is higher quality — it's which profile the room actually needs.