This paper summarises the main findings concerning consumer behaviour for wine published in academic journals in the last ten years and provides some suggestions about strategic research directions to take in the next few years. One major finding was that few new or novel findings are occurring in some areas: the role of price, brand, region, grape variety, awards; comparisons of Old and New World; segmentation of wine consumers; the value of sustainable or ‘green’ wine practices to consumers. Another finding was the predominance of one-off convenience sample studies that are difficult to interpret for generalisable results. Some areas with greatest research needs are: retail marketing and consumer response to the variety of techniques retailers use; on-premise consumer behaviour; online and social media influences on consumers; premium and luxury wine behaviour and successful marketing practices; consumer behaviour in emerging markets; the value of wine tourism and marketing for value; the relationship between grape/wine quality and consumer behaviour; consumer response to wine and health issues

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on measuring the importance of the attributes, which influence the wine choice of Italian consumers when they buy wine either in a retail or an on-premise setting, identifying significant behavioural differences across geo-demographic subgroups of the sample. Design/methodology/approach – The best-worst (BW) method was applied together with simple statistical methods to measure the degree of importance given by respondents to attributes, avoid rating bias problems, and compare potential market segments. Findings – A general analysis of BW scores showed that direct, personal and sensorial experiences are the most important attributes when choosing wine. The statistical analysis evidenced that, while choosing wine in retail stores, the level of involvement respondents have toward wine, the age of the interviewees and the geographical provenance of the respondents showed the greatest differences in attribute importance. Respondents in the on-premise sector were more similar across the socio-demographic groups compared to the retail respondents, with differences in the age and involvement having the greatest effect compared to other variables. Originality/value – The BW method has never been applied in Italy so far. Moreover, it has never been used to measure preferences of Italian consumers for wine, either in the retail or in the on-premise setting. The BW method allowed researchers to identify the attributes able to influence consumers choices for wine at most (and at least). Compared to other methodologies, this has been done avoiding problems of rating bias, favouring a cross regional comparison of the way diverse populations judge similar attributes.

While menu items and menu design have been explored in the food-service sector, there is still a lack of information about the role played by product elements in a wine list from a consumer’s perspective. This study aims to fill this gap using a novel research method, choice modeling with latent class analysis for segmentation, which has not been used previously in menu research. The goal is to provide a better understanding of the way consumers choose wine in an on-premises setting and to identify possible segments based on how consumers respond to different types of information provided on the menu. The study was conducted in Australia, using an online representative panel of 1,258 respondents in May 2009, in a market similar to the United States with regard to on-premises wine consumption. The main results show that grape varietals are key choice drivers, followed by the awards obtained by a wine and its price. Less important but about equal in weight were a wine’s region of origin and tasting notes (i.e., a description of its sensory characteristics). The least important choice factor is food-matching suggestions. A segmentation analysis revealed the existence of seven segments, which are distinctive with regard to wine preferences based on the attributes analyzed in this study. However, as much as these groups diverge in the way they behave, they do not differ on the basis of their sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics, confirming similar findings of other studies.