The wine sector faces urgent challenges related to climate change, resource constraints, rising energy costs, and shifting consumption patterns. In this context, sustainability represents a lever of competitiveness and resilience, enabling producers to differentiate themselves through their connection with the territory and the preservation of artisanal practices. This is particularly evident for native varieties, such as the Apulian Primitivo, whose market repositioning is based on production choices that combine sustainability and craftsmanship, generating wines with distinctive organoleptic characteristics while also contributing to the environmental, economic, and social protection of the production areas. At the same time, the spread of e-commerce offers new opportunities to enhance these characteristics: online descriptions enrich the communication of details compared to the physical label, reducing information asymmetries and making signs of quality and sustainability more visible. Therefore, this study applies a hedonic model to estimate the implicit price of such practices, analyzing 656 Primitivo labels through simultaneous quantile regressions. The results show that sensory characteristics, such as alcohol content and ageing, determine the price throughout distribution, while identity and sustainable attributes have heterogeneous effects: ecological practices and Geographical Indications affect the lower quantiles, while indigenous yeasts and sapling vines are configured as premium signals in the upper segments.

The growing diffusion of dealcoholized wines calls for a deeper understanding of how information and sensory evaluation jointly shape consumer acceptance, particularly in traditional wine markets. This study investigates the effects of different combinations of information and tasting on sensory evaluation and willingness-to-pay for a partially dealcoholized red wine. A between-subjects experiment was conducted during a scientific festival in Apulia (Italy), where participants were assigned to three conditions (INFO-SENS, SENS, INFO) and evaluated a non-commercialized Apulian Primitivo (1.5% ABV), produced through low-temperature vacuum evaporation and not pasteurized. Sensory attributes (visual, olfactory, gustatory, overall) were rated on 9-point hedonic scales, and WTP for a 125 mL glass was elicited using a payment card. The results show that the information-only group (INFO) reported the highest WTP, compared to the tasting-only group (SENS). Information exposure increased visual and olfactory evaluations, but not gustatory ratings. Prior knowledge of NoLo wines was associated with negative expectations, though this effect was attenuated by information. Overall, within this experimental setting, information emerged as a key driver of perceived value outweighing sensory liking, although the two remained positively correlated. These findings highlight the importance of transparent communication in fostering acceptance and repositioning dealcoholized wine as a credible category within traditional markets.