Italian wine consumer behaviour and wineries responsive capacity

This paper analyzes habits and motivations behind wine consumption in Italy and focuses on the attributes affecting wine choice, through interviews and a choice experiment approach. We show that consumers are interested in a wide concept of quality, which covers the whole production process. Both the notoriety of the industrial brand and the designation of origin constitute important quality signals. However, the use of the designation of origin to assess quality at the moment of purchase requires a certain level of product knowledge and involvement. Supermarkets and stores play an increasing role in the commercialization of wine on the final market. Nevertheless, the appreciation of private label wines is relatively low. Finally, we provide some observations on how the Italian wineries are equipped toward market requirements, according to the typologies of vertical relationship between the vine growing and the grapevine processing stages, the quantity and quality strategies.