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Wine tourism has been growing considerably over the past decades. The literature highlights its relevance in the social, economic and cultural development of the regions where wine routes are located. However, few studies examine residents’ tourism impact perceptions and even fewer analyse the diversity of these perceptions. This study aims to fill this gap, examining this diversity according to the life-cycle stage of the wine route and residents’ involvement with wine and with tourism activities.

Data obtained from a questionnaire-based survey (N = 882) of residents from three wine routes of the Central Region of Portugal – Bairrada, Dão and Beira Interior – were used, with dimensions of perceived impacts tested for internal consistency via Cronbach’s α. T-tests and ANOVA tests were used to compare residents’ perceptions of wine tourism impacts according to the life-cycle stage of the wine route and residents’ involvement with wine and with tourism activities.

Generally, residents perceived that wine tourism generates more benefits than costs, with positive economic and socio cultural impacts standing out, while negative environmental and social impacts were perceived less. Some differences are observed according to the life-cycle stage of the wine route, with both the most and the least developed routes presenting more pronounced both positive and negative impact impressions in diverse dimensions. Also, a moderating effect (however not as pronounced) of working in tourism and (even less visible) of working in the wine sector is observed. Possible explanations of these findings and implications on wine route development are discussed.

This article analyses a subject of great relevance for the sustainable development of wine tourism destinations that has been little studied in the literature. Thus, relevant theoretical and empirical contributions are identified.

The study analyses residents' impact perceptions and attitudes towards wine tourism development in a Portuguese hinterland region. It additionally assesses heterogeneity within the community regarding these perceptions and attitudes to inform wine route managers about possible implications and to aid adequate intervention for sustainable regional tourism development.

Data were collected from February to August 2020 among the residents of Beira Interior Region (n = 272), via a survey, regarding tourism development and impact perceptions (social, economic, cultural and environmental) of the emerging wine route.

Results reveal that the residents have rather positive attitudes towards tourism development with perceived and anticipated social, economic, cultural and environmental benefits. Some negative perceptions were also observed. Differences amongst residents, based on age, education and sector of activity, are also assessed and implications discussed. The latter lie mostly in suggestions regarding sensitization of residents, particularly the older and less educated, and community inclusion in engaging, endogenous-resource-based, co-created wine tourism experience development.

The paper provides an analysis of the community's view of rural wine tourism development, going beyond the generally studied business and market perspectives. The community's perspective is important not only due to its central stake in place development, but also its role in preserving local culture, specifically food and wine traditions, providing a welcoming atmosphere and possibly engaging in innovative, co-creative tourism experiences, permitting the generation of benefits to all involved. Community involvement is relevant from the very beginning of the destination development cycle, and hence pertinent for this emergent wine tourism route as well.

This article seeks to uncover if the definition of terroir is the same between the users (producers, vendors, high and low involvement consumers) of the term in the French wine industry. The objective is to uncover if the definition of terroir is homogenous between the user groups.

An online questionnaire was distributed to an industry sample and then to a consumer panel, and asked respondents to outline in their own words how they would define a terroir product. Lexical analyses using SATO software were conducted and uncovered word frequency, distances, and contexts.

The results show that each user group has its own taxonomy of terroir terms and uses an exclusive vocabulary. User group distinctions and commonalities are outlined. Globally it appears that the user groups seem to define terroir based on their level of involvement with wine as well as their role in the wine industry.

French wine marketers can use these results to better understand how types of consumers perceive terroir and consider these perceptions when contemplating using terroir in a product description such as on wine labels or when developing marketing communications.

Prior to this research there were no empirical results regarding how terroir is defined in the marketplace as well as the relationships between the descriptives used to define terroir. This research is a first step in understanding the value of terroir as a marketing attribute as well as the signals it represents for all user groups in the French wine industry.

This study aims to identify the decision-making process involved in the purchase of organic wine from consumer values to attitudes to behavioural intention towards organic wine via the value–attitude–behaviour (VAB) model. Involvement in wine is also taken into consideration.

The data were collected using a snowball sampling method and a closed-ended questionnaire. A total of 209 responses were analysed. Linear regression and PROCESS Macro on SPSS were used to perform data analysis.

Both biospheric-altruistic values and egoistic values are positively associated with attitudes towards organic wine. Attitude is found to mediate the relationship between biospheric-altruistic/egoistic values and behavioural intention. Egoistic values are found to significantly predict behavioural intention in the organic wine purchase context. Involvement was found to moderate the relationship between egoistic values and attitudinal loyalty.

This study identifies the decision-making hierarchy from consumer values to attitudes to behavioural intention, theoretically confirming the robustness of the VAB model in the organic wine consumption context. It also makes a practical contribution by indicating the marketing emphasis of organic wine and segmenting potential consumers according to their values and levels of wine involvement.

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovation among micro and small business operators in Italy’s wine industry. Moreover, in adopting the theory of innovation, the study examines winery operators’ perceptions on innovation, ways in which wineries are innovating and whether participants’ responses vary based on demographic characteristics.

An online questionnaire designed for this study gathered the responses of 211 participants, composed by owners, winemakers, directors and business partners.

Innovation is fundamentally associated with minimising ecological footprint, investments, making improvements in the winery, adapting to trends and new consumer demands and, importantly, with maintaining traditions while enhancing the quality of the wines. Further, participants primarily agree with involvement in wine tourism and adoption of social media as predominant forms of innovating. Several inter-group differences particularly based on levels of wine production and size of the winery emerged. Overall, the findings align with the dimensions of the theory of innovation, namely, benefits, costs, resources and discounting factors.

Despite the significance of Italy’s wine industry, in terms of exports and consumption on a global scale, academic research focusing on this industry’s innovative practices has been limited. Similarly, there is scant research on innovation among micro and small firms, or on industries relevant to countries’ socio-economic capital. This exploratory study provides an element of originality and value, exploring and contributing to the literature on these under-researched areas.

Fungus-resistant grape varieties (FRGVs) are the key to more environment-friendly wine growing. This paper aims to examine whether German consumers are willing to buy environment-friendly wines. The study focuses on reducing the amount of fungicides applied and the improvement of the carbon footprint, which are both related to the FRGVs . Furthermore, a cluster analysis leads to more insights into the consumer groups that are open to environment-friendly wine.

A choice experiment was conducted among 1,500 German wine drinkers with the following attributes: “reduction of pesticides”, “reduction of carbon emissions”,“familiarity with the grape variety”,“organic certification”, the slogan “better for the environment” and“price”. The individual-level, part-worth utilities were estimated using the Hierarchical Bayes method. The Ward’s method was used to cluster the individual-level, part-worth utilities. The participants’ wine involvement and environmentalism are used to further analyse the sample.

The most important attribute is “price”, followed by the “familiarity with the grape variety” and the “reduction of pesticides” and of “carbon emissions”. The least important attribute is “better for the environment”. The cluster analysis results in three clusters: the green-minded, the traditionalists and the price-minded.

The insights about the consumer acceptance of environment-friendly wines can be used to market these wines more effectively to consumers.

This is the first study that combines a choice experiment with attributes that are derived from the benefits of fungus-resistant grape varieties.

This study aims to provide insights on how different sources of information concerning a quality assurance program (QAP) influence consumers’ wine purchase likelihood, profiles of consumers most likely to use QAPs (demographics, wine consumption and expenditures, wine involvement behaviors) and consumer attitudes toward QAPs.

Data are from a 2021 survey of 1,191 wine consumers in Tennessee and other US states. A multiple indicators multiple causes model is used to estimate how consumer demographics, wine consumption and expenditure patterns and several wine-involvement measures influence likelihood of using QAPs from eight provider sources when making wine purchase decisions. Sources include university, government, third-party certifiers, wineries and wine associations at the state, regional, national and international levels.

Wine consumers have an interest in QAP information when making wine purchase decisions. Not all QAP provider information is used equally, with almost 69% of the sample indicating the use of state wine association QAPs, but less than 44% indicating the use of government agency QAPs or third-party QAPs. Wine consumers’ demographics also influence the use of QAP information. Males, higher income consumers, residing outside of Tennessee and more wine-involved consumers are more likely to use QAPs. Consumers view QAPs as indicators of overall wine quality, ingredient quality and wine consistency rather than necessarily a means of building knowledge about local wines.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine not only QAP use from multiple providers but also how demographics, wine consumption, wine expenditures and wine-involvement impact QAP use.

The purpose of this study is to examine consumers’ relationship with wine during the COVID-19 crisis and associated implications for hospitality and tourism operations. Despite the severe impacts of COVID-19’s aftermath, including recent reports of a global decrease in wine consumption, academic research has neglected this domain. Consequently, there is an empirical and conceptual vacuum that the present research will address.

The study proposes a comparative investigation, with data gathered from 241 Italian and Spanish wine consumers through an online questionnaire.

Overall, the analysis reveals marginal changes in wine consumption during the crisis. At the same time, however, an increased interest for more wine events and an organised wine route, for learning more about wines and new wine harvests, and the influence of comments from others in enhancing one’s wine knowledge during the crisis is also identified.

The study is one of the few studies conducted to date that seek to ascertain the extent to which wine consumers’ involvement with wine has changed during a major crisis. The findings and subsequent analysis contribute to the development of five distinctive dimensions associated with consumers: the more involved/interested, the inquisitive/explorer, the non-traditional/avid, the frugal/less involved and the conservative/avid. The first two dimensions, which are supported by mean scores close to the level of agreement (mean = 4.0) have a number of practical and conceptual implications. In addition, a conceptual framework illustrating various conceptual/empirical relationships is proposed.

This paper focuses on the wine tourist market in the central region of Portugal, and it aims to analyze the wine tourist’s demographic and travel behavior and preferences profile, based on their level of wine involvement.

This paper presents results from an exploratory study with a quantitative design, including a total of 1,029 survey responses from visitors of three wine routes. A K-mean cluster analysis was carried out, and the emerging groups of wine tourists were statistically compared (ANOVA or Chi-squared test).

Participants present a demographic profile of the wine route visitor similar to that found in other studies, with an average involvement with wine. There were three clusters of wine tourists, with different levels of involvement with wine: less wine-involved; medium wine-involved; and highly wine-involved. Significant differences between the three mentioned categories are visible for gender, age and attractions visited and expenses, suggesting the possibility of a differentiated market approach. Additionally, most respondents report high interest in a variety of attractions that are not exclusively wine-related. This finding supports the conceptualization of (particularly rural) wine tourism as “terroir tourism.”

The pandemic context in which data collection was undertaken led to a smaller sample than expected, which was also more domestic than would have been in “non-COVID” times.

This study provides relevant insights about visitors of wine routes in Central Portugal, which may resonate in other wine tourism destinations. Implications for both theory and practice are also discussed.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study the wine tourism market in the Central Region of Portugal and expands our understanding about wine tourists’ profiles, behavior and interests, adding with empirical findings to the debate on heterogeneity in the wine tourist market, the role of wine involvement and of terroir.

The scenario of clean wines is rather articulated, and many consumers perceive diverse types of wines as a homogeneous category, not actually related with the true characteristics of the products. Additionally, most often, individuals turning to these wines are driven either by health concerns or environmental consciousness or by curiosity. The purpose of this study is to understand whether there are differences in monetary preferences for four distinct clean labels and to analyze the level of interest of diverse market segments of regular wine consumers for this specific category of wines.

This study applied a computer-assisted Web interviewing technique. A survey was administrated in mid-September 2021 by a professional panel provider to a quota-based sample (N = 1,113) of Italian regular wine consumers. Individual willingness-to-pay (WTP) for red wines carrying different claims (organic, natural, low-sulfites and no-additives) and a conventional counterpart were collected. Clean wines’ WTP were subsequently used for hierarchical clustering.

Among the clean labels presented, respondents reported a higher WTP for organic wine. Cluster analysis yielded three actionable segments: “Easygoing wine enjoyers” (63.7%), “Convenience drinkers” (13.4%) and “Clean wine passionate” (23%). The latter reveals high preferences for all the investigated clean wines.

Sociodemographics and wine-related characteristics of regular wine consumers particularly interested in clean wines are depicted in this study; further analysis should delve on the core drivers of individual preferences.

Wineries should consider the heterogeneous interest of regular wine consumers for clean wines, developing tailored strategies for specific market segments. Stakeholders interested in safeguarding consumers should carefully monitor the landscape of different clean claims entering the wine market.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has simultaneously analyzed regular wine consumers’ preferences for the four types of clean labels.