Consumers’ preferences for wine attributes: A best-worst scaling analysis

Abstract

The current paper aims to explore consumers’ preferences for wine attributes related to tradition, sustainability, and innovation. A total of 419 regular wine consumers participated in an online survey that took place in Italy. Consumers’ preferences were assessed through a Best-Worst experiment with 11 wine attributes drawn from the literature. The result shows that the wine attributes, more important for consumers, are mainly related to tradition and sustainability. More specifically, the most important attributes for consumers when purchasing wine are “geographical indications”, “grape variety”, “sustainable certification”, “vintage”, and “price”. By contrast, the innovative wine attributes investigated were ranked among the least important ones, namely “canned wine”, “alcohol-free wine”, and “vegan wine”. The study findings offer several implications for wineries and marketers involved in the wine sector. They specifically provide suggestions on the wine attribute wineries should focus on to meet the current consumers’ preferences.