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Networks linking tourist attractions or organizations are a major focus of tourism research. Despite extensive research on tourism networks, academic research on the spatial structure and formation of wine tourism networks is limited. This study aims to investigate the spatial structure and factors influencing the development of a network among Ningxia wineries, an emerging wine tourism destination in China.

This study uses social network analysis to uncover “what” the spatial structure of wine tourism networks looks like. Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted among key stakeholders to explain the “why” of such structural characteristics.

The results show that in an emerging wine tourism destination, popular tourist attractions enjoy high centrality and hold key positions in the wine tourism network. Small wineries exhibit high closeness centrality, and only one winery serves as a network broker. According to the stakeholders, the importance of network actors will increase as their economic and political importance increase, while small wineries that lack differentiation in the network may perish.

Local governments can implement the suggested measures for improving network connections, and wineries are advised to find suitable positions to improve the experiences of tourists.

This study pioneers the identification of the distinct structure and factors influencing the network of an emerging wine tourism destination, thus enriching the understanding of the interplay and roles of different actors.

This paper seeks to develop a framework for comparisons and benchmarking between wine tourism destinations.

A regional case study was undertaken, including data from a survey of 23 wineries in Canada's Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. The survey provides the winery perspective on development of wine tourism, as well as opinions on what should be done to improve wine tourism.

Wineries were found to be pursuing tourism developments, but kept little data on visitors and related spending. Their goals and opinions on what is needed in the region revealed that they are mostly oriented toward domestic, independent travelers. One hypothesis emerging from this case study is that the growth and increasing sophistication of wine tourism infrastructure, both at wineries and elsewhere in the region, is in large part a function of market potential. On the supply‐side, a critical mass can be facilitated through establishment of major, landmark wineries that are purpose‐built as tourist attractions.

Using this profile of the Okanagan, implications are drawn for comparisons and benchmarking among wine tourism destinations, including a suggested process and measures.

The single case study limits generalizability to other destinations, and the achieved sample of wineries does not necessarily reflect the major corporate wineries in the Okanagan Valley. More systematic comparison of wine regions is recommended.

This research makes an original contribution for applying the concept and method of benchmarking to wine tourism destinations. It is of value to the wine industry, destination marketers, and host community planners.

Most research on new organizations drawing on resource-based theory examines firms in discrete development stages with resources that already exist. The purpose of this paper is to articulate a broader view of changing resource requirements over the life of new organizations. The authors propose four phases of resources development, arguing that new resources and capabilities must develop as new strategic challenges emerge. The paper identifies salient resources in these phases and finds that internal resource development is context dependent, interacting with the external stage of industry development.

After developing the theoretical model, the authors use an exploratory qualitative study involving extensive case studies of new ventures in the wine industry. Key personnel at a sample of firms were interviewed, supplemented with secondary data from published reports.

The paper finds that a linear stage development model for new organizational ventures is inappropriate. The various combinations of early/later new ventures in a formative/developed industry suggest that some may proceed rapidly in a linear fashion through phases of development, while others may find progress slow, difficult, stalled or occasionally regressive. A combination of resources developed simultaneously in a non-linear pattern appears to be critical to the success of new ventures. In other words, combinations must evolve as the strategic challenges evolve, thus bringing an important contextual view to the examination of dynamic resource development efforts for new organizations. Attempts to focus in a piecemeal fashion on individual aspects of resource development, without accounting for resource interactions at a systemic level or the nature of the strategic demands, is likely to leave researchers and practitioners with incomplete insights.

Existing studies have failed to grasp the dynamic and interactive process of resource development as organizations evolve in a new industry setting. The model presented in this paper provides a heuristic device for conceptualizing these changes.

Muscadines grapes, the fruit of a vine native to the South East of the USA have been studied extensively, including their alleged beneficial health properties. To date, however, very little is known about the business side of muscadine growing. For instance, very limited information exists on whether wineries growing muscadines are currently processing their grapes into other value‐added products. The present study seeks to explore these aspects from winery operators' points‐of‐view.

Telephone interviews, coupled with two face‐to‐face on‐site interviews were conducted among 31 winery owners located in different states in the South East of the USA.

Overall, winery operators acknowledge the potential for the diversification and development of muscadine value‐added products, including juice, jellies, fortified wines or those for pharmaceutical purposes. However, the limited supply of muscadine grapes or muscadine juice to satisfy demand for value‐added products is an area of concern that several muscadine growers acknowledged. Also of concern are laws and regulations that are preventing winery operators from capitalizing on some muscadine products with alcohol content.

The low number of participants in comparison with the much larger number of existing muscadine wineries limits the generalisability of the findings.

With potentially greater demand for muscadine‐related products in the future, industry support and the development of new initiatives are needed to facilitate the process of value‐added muscadine product development for the benefit of operators, the industry and consumers.

The study focuses on the business‐side of muscadine production, an area that to a great extent has been neglected in contemporary research.

This research focuses on analysing the effect of wine tourism on green product and process innovations developed by Spanish wineries. In addition, age, size and membership in a protected designation of origin (PDO) are introduced as control variables to increase the precision of the cause–effect relationship analysed.

The study proposes a conceptual model based on previous studies, which is tested using structural equations (partial least squares structural equation modelling [PLS-SEM]) with data collected from 202 Spanish wineries.

The research results show that wine tourism activity has a positive and significant influence on green product and process innovation.

The research contributes to the academic literature in several ways. First, the study advances knowledge and understanding of the benefits generated by wine tourism. Second, the research contributes to the literature that analyses the wine tourism–sustainability link, since it is predicted that this type of tourism can increase the capacity for green innovation. Third, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no previous research that has analysed wine tourism as a catalytic variable for green innovation. Fourth, the proposed theoretical model has not been previously addressed in the academic literature, so the study represents an important advance in scientific knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to define and analyse not only the main categories of online marketing strategies used by Rioja wine producers but also how wineries use their websites to provide information about wine tourism.

The content of websites corresponding to the Rioja designation of origin (Spain) is analysed, and the types of websites are determined according to significant differences in their content.

The websites used by Rioja wineries can be improved. The elements developed the best are those related to contact information and interactive communication, although interactive communication can also be enhanced through properly managed social networks. The study concludes that the websites can be further improved by including more information about the wines of the wineries, by improving their e-commerce platforms and interactivity and by including more information about other companies at the wine tourism destination. Two distinct types of websites were observed, differentiated by greater or lesser orientation towards the development of the region as a wine tourism destination.

This study should be conducted for other designations of origin, both national and international, thereby allowing a comparison of not only the elements that are present on websites but also their orientation.

An outline is provided regarding the information that a winery's website must have to generate interest in a region as a wine tourism destination. The indicators that must be developed for a region to be tourism oriented are shown.

The study highlights the importance of including wine tourism information on websites to improve social cohesion among wine tourism players and to contribute to both a stronger wine tourism identity and improved economic outcomes.

The proposed scheme is a diagnostic tool that allows determining the areas of improvement of one of the main sources of information used by tourists when selecting a destination. This tool can be applied by any winery regardless of its location.

The purpose of this empirical research is to identify the distinguishing operating characteristics of wineries that use what is alleged to be the most profitable channel of distribution for marketing wine in the USA: the wine club.

The research design entails the contrasting of the Web site-reflected operating features of wineries that support wine clubs with wineries that do not.

Support was found for the great majority of operating features identified in the literature as likely characterizing the operations of wineries with wine clubs. A notable exception concerns the lack of confirmation of hypotheses concerning “Wine 2.0” variables.

In the apparent pursuit of higher profits, owners and managers of wineries with wine clubs more frequently adopt operating features that expose them to objective competitive comparisons than do owners and managers with other wineries. The former are also more prone to advertise on their Web sites a variety of offers that collectively constitute a more valuable quid pro quo in their relationships with consumer buyers than appears to be the case with other wineries. Strategically, results demonstrate that a winery’s adoption of a wine club is not a part of an evolutionary process of wineries in general.

There has been no other published empirical research that concerned the identification of distinguishing operating features of wineries that use what has been argued to be the most profitable channel for marketing wine at retail in the USA: the wine club channel. Winery owners and managers will find particular value in the results and implications of the research.

This paper identifies policies that have played influential roles in shaping British Columbia’s wine tourism value chain. It identifies those policies that have moulded the province’s current approach to wine tourism attraction development and resource protection in the Okanagan Valley. It suggests that significant progress has been made in the development of responsible and responsive polices related to these two components of the wine tourism value chain. However, it recommends that policies need to be created at the municipal level so that future wine tourism development protects the integrity and sustainable use of the region’s natural resource base.

Wine as a research topic continues to address a plethora of diverse contexts. In consideration of this scope and abundance of wine literature, this study aims to provide guidance for future meaningful contributions to this existing body of wine knowledge through a comprehensive scholarly review.

A total of 22 wine business, hospitality and tourism journals were selected and used to identify 739 refereed articles addressing wine-related topics over a 26-year period from 1990 to 2015. This was segmented using five wine research time frames, which were then separately investigated using content analysis and keyword network analysis.

Results support the importance for continued refinement of certain research areas to add understanding to wine research. In particular, the topics of marketing and tourism pertaining to wine research have fragmented into much more specialized sub-segments over this 26-year period.

Limitations include generalizability of findings because of the study’s use of 22 journals, along with the selected 26-year period. Future research should examine other time periods using other publications in peripheral and in non-related areas to seek topics potentially and inadvertently overlooked by this process. Significant topics and trends regarding wine research were identified and classified according to time periods. Information has been provided for future directions and new research agendas.

Based upon an examination of time periods segmented by half-decades, keyword network analysis was used to explore wine research trends. Using keyword network analytics, this method for identifying networks between key words produced findings that have brought the literature regarding wine research to a current status allowing academics to gain insights into potential direction for future research needs.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of wine tourism on the economic, social and environmental performance, i.e. the sustainable performance, of Spanish wineries. In addition, age, size and membership in the protected designation of origin are introduced as control variables to increase the precision of the cause-effect relationships analyzed.

A conceptual model is proposed, which is tested by means of structural equation modeling based on data from a survey of 202 Spanish wineries.

The results indicate the existence of a positive and significant link between wine tourism activities and the three performance typologies analyzed in the Spanish wine context.

The study contributes to the academic literature on wine tourism in a remarkable way, as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no previous literature that has addressed the effect of wine tourism on the sustainable performance of Spanish wineries, making the study useful for both academics and wine professionals who are considering the implementation or development of this typology of tourism in their facilities.