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The present research expands the debate on environmental sustainability in the wine industry. Since the literature on sustainability and wine is relatively recent, current results do not cover all the practices that can be implemented along the wine supply chain. Thus, the paper presents a classification of environmental practices specific for the wine industry, according to the increased attention that has been paid to this topic in recent years. Moreover, it investigates the adoption level of these practices with reference to Italian wine producers.

The research presents a systematic literature review including papers published in academic journals during the past 30 years and in Italian specialised magazines. This methodology is useful to provide a clear overview of sustainable practices that can be adopted along the wine supply chain. Therefore, an empirical study based on the results of an online survey shows how wineries approach environmental sustainability.

The literature review provides a definition and classification of environmental practices in the wine industry, as well as identification of those that require further attention in the literature, suggesting future research paths. The results of the online survey give an overview of the adoption level of environmental practices and highlight widespread attention to all the listed environmental practices, including those not adopted.

From a theoretical point of view, this paper fills a literature gap in terms of the definition and classification of environmental practices that cover all wine supply chain processes, also providing a useful instrument for wine companies' managers. Moreover, the results of the empirical research give an overview of the adoption level of environmental practices in one of the most relevant countries in terms of wine production and highlight widespread attention to all the listed environmental practices, including those not adopted.

This paper aims to establish the determinants of production in the Spanish Designation of Origin (DO) area for Cava wine and forecasts sales to establish vineyard area variations that maintain market equilibrium.

By applying a vector autoregressive (VAR) model, the authors forecast demand and the consequent requirements for base wine production.

The results show that Cava sales determine the base wine supply. After forecasting demand and the consequent requirements for base wine, the authors’ results show that, to avoid oversupply, the vineyard area for Cava wine should not be increased.

The paper develops a simple and effective method for DOs affected by the current European wine plantation regulations to forecast from a supply and demand perspective and their surface needs in response to market changes.

This study contributes to the literature because, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has investigated the determinants of Cava supply and demand or defines a model to assess the effects of changes in growing areas. The model is applicable to other European protected designations of origin wines and would help policymakers to accurately establish vine planting authorizations.

Through geographical indications, the European Union aims to stimulate economies, especially in lagging rural regions, and to help consumers recognise and locate quality products from specific regions. The highly uneven distribution of geographical indications, and with that the unequal benefits of this policy, have been identified and discussed in the scientific literature on food and rural development.

Using a statistical analysis of the distribution of geographical indications, the paper tests the validity of several theoretical explanations that are offered in the literature for the uneven spatial distribution.

From this assessment, the paper concludes, amongst others, that common single-cause explanations for the uneven distribution of labels in Europe have weak explanatory value. Rather, the uneven distribution is based on a complex set of causes, with different effects at national and regional level. Moreover, the findings highlight that in contrast to its aim, the policy does not seem to benefit especially lagging rural regions.

The analysis of the uneven distribution of labels in Europe offered here suggests that a distinction should be drawn between the mechanisms resulting in regional food products versus the mechanisms resulting in regional food labels, such as geographical indications.

Wine packaged tours as a specific aspect of wine tourism have so far been neglected in research, for this reason, the purpose of this study is to study the key elements for the success of the wine tour in Tuscany (Italy), evaluating the points of strength and weakness.

The study combines approaches of text mining, sentiment analysis and natural language processing, drawing on data from the TripAdvisor platform, obtaining through an automatic procedure 9,616 reviews from 600 tours in the years 2010–2020.

The authors identified six elements of successful wine tours expressed by research subjects: tour guide; logistical aspects; the quality of the wine; the quality of the food; complementary tourist and recreational activities; the landscape and historic villages. The key strength associated with success was the integration of the leading wine product with food, landscape and historic villages, while the main criticisms were concerned with the organization and planning of the tour. Furthermore, the tour guide also plays a fundamental role in consumer satisfaction.

The limitations of the method were linked to the origin of the data used. The main one is that TripAdvisor does not allow you to have social and personal information about the tourist who wrote the review; therefore, the methods are substantially complementary to the traditional survey through questionnaires.

The proposed model can be used both by professionals to improve the quality of their products and by policymakers to promote the territorial development of quality wine-growing areas.

The proposed model can be useful for policymakers to promote the territorial development of quality wine-growing areas.

The methodology we tested is easily transferable to many countries and to the authors’ knowledge, for the first time attempts to combine multidimensional scaling, sentiment analysis and natural language processing approaches.

Consumer likeability and willingness to pay (WTP) for two Italian sparkling wines, (Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG and Prosecco DOC) are evaluated through a non-hypothetical Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction during a wine-tasting experiment. The purpose of this paper is to estimate individual WTP and relate it to likeability for both wines, with and without supplying additional information on their features.

Data were collected in May–June 2019 from a sample of 99 consumers in Northern Italy. A non-hypothetical BDM auction in a wine-tasting experiment was implemented.

The results show that the additional information plays a significant role in widening the WTP gap between the two geographical indications (GIs), while the blind tasting narrows this gap. The “superiority” of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG is confirmed but relies more on its better reputation than its better taste.

The authors are aware of two main limitations in the study. The first is the territorial composition of the consumer sample. The second is the selection of the Prosecco bottles used in the experiment. The results are considered pioneering and need to be verified by additional experiments with different consumer and bottle samples.

Promotional suggestions for the Tutelary Consortia of the two GIs stem from the results. The Prosecco DOC should primarily stress its likeability, while the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG should primarily emphasise the reasons for its “superiority”.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous study has related likeability and WTP for similar GI wines produced in contiguous areas. Moreover, the current research has applied a non-hypothetical BDM auction in a wine-tasting experiment.

This study contributes to the scant research on dealcoholised wine from a consumer behaviour perspective by providing insight and reporting on the attributes that South African Generation Y consumers prefer when purchasing dealcoholised wine.

A two-phased research approach was adopted, involving a main quantitative phase, preceded by a qualitative phase. Data were gathered from 626 South African Generation Y respondents by means of a questionnaire. The best–worst scaling method was applied to 13 selected dealcoholised wine attributes, to measure the level of importance of each attribute. To gain more insight on the data, the best-worst scaling scores were further standardised to a probabilistic ratio scale.

“Taste”, “price” and “I have tried it before” were the most important attributes that respondents considered when purchasing dealcoholised wine. Furthermore, “taste” was by far the most important of all the attributes. The attributes of “back label”, “attractive front label” and “brand name” were identified as the least important by the respondents, suggesting that they did not consider the visual elements of a bottle of dealcoholised wine as particularly important in their purchasing decision.

The findings of this pioneering study contribute to the lack of knowledge about dealcoholised wine from a consumer behaviour and marketing perspective, and provide insights and strategies that can be used by stakeholders to enhance the dealcoholised wine market in South Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of wine closure types on the quality perception of wine consumers in a traditional wine market, combined with the willingness to pay for red and white wines in bottles closed with screw caps compared with that for wines in bottles with a cork closure.

An online experiment with 436 Austrian wine consumers was conducted in a two-by-two between-groups design. To assess the quality of Austrian red and white wine, quality indicators such as origin, grape variety, awards, the content of residual sugar, vintage, geographical indication, ageing potential, organic certification, vineyard designation and brand (producer) have been applied. Furthermore, different involvement levels as well as willingness to pay were taken into consideration.

Contrary to earlier findings, results confirm that Austrian consumers do not generally perceive wines (both red and white) in a screw cap bottle to be lower or different in quality from those in a cork-closed bottle. However, consumers expect red and white wines in bottles with a cork closure to be higher in price than wines in bottles with a screw cap. Among established quality indicators, the present analysis shows that price is the strongest cue for quality when it comes to wines and indicates that wines in bottles closed with corks and bearing a higher price tag are considered to be of higher quality.

This research comes with limitations, such as the absence of sensory differences. Moreover, the research design is based exclusively on the description of wines and a limited set of quality indicators and does not involve the actual tasting of wines.

Outcomes suggest that in the strategic positioning of wines, the difference in wine consumers’ quality perceptions between wine bottles with screw caps and cork closures plays a smaller role than anticipated. Findings are relevant for practitioners, particularly in old-world wine markets where cork is still seen as the closure of choice for higher-quality wines.

The results of this survey contribute to understanding consumers of an established old-world wine market and their attitudes towards alternative bottle closure types such as screw caps. It adds new insights to the research stream of the quality perception of wines.

The paper investigates the closure mechanisms and strategies of exclusion concerning the establishment and subsequent functioning of the Collegio dei Rasonati, the professional body of accountants that was established in Venice in 1581 and operated until the end of the 18th century.

The research design offers a critical longitudinal explanation of the emergence of the Collegio dei Rasonati as a professional body in the context of Venetian society by relying on the social closure theory elaborated by Collins (1975); Parkin (1979) and Murphy (1988).

The Collegio dei Rasonati was established to overcome the prerogatives of a social class in accessing the accounting profession. However, the pre-existing professional elites enacted a set of social closure strategies able to transform this professional body into a stronghold of their privileges.

As virtually all of the evidence concerning the admission examinations has been lost over time, the investigation is restricted to the study of the few examples that have survived. The main implication of the study concerns the understanding of some dynamics leading to neutralize attempts to replace class privileges with a meritocratic system.

The research investigates the structure of the rules of social closure revealing the possibility of an antagonistic relationship between different co-existing forms of exclusion within the same structure. Moreover, it highlights that a form of exclusion can be made of different hierarchical levels.