Working Paper Category: Business

Storytelling is a powerful marketing tool. It represents a form of content marketing that appeals to the imagination of the consumer. We have studied the use of storytelling by Georgian wine makers. As a wine country, the former Soviet republic of Georgia has a compelling story to tell. The country represents the cradle of wine and has an unbroken 8000 year old history of wine production. In addition to the story of the origin of Georgian wine, the country is still producing wine in a tradition that dates from the antiquity. The Qvevry production method is still in use in Georgia and produces wine with a very characteristic taste. Furthermore, some of the vineyards in Georgia has a long history and is related to historical buildings often depicted on the label of the wine bottle. Finally, the grapes are originally from Georgia and has been grown here for thousands of years. We have followed four vineyards and their history in order to depict how storytelling is used the wine industry in Georgia.

The aim of the study is to scientifically explore the role of paper and embellishments of wine labels in driving consumers’ visual behaviour on the shelf, their perception of the product and their purchase choices. Thirty labels were created combining six types of papers and six types of embellishments. Thirty target consumers explored the shelf first without any specific tasks, and then with the goal to choose a bottle of wine, while their visual behaviour were recorded through a wearable eye-tracker.
Subsequently, the consumers were exposed to each single bottle. They had to watch each bottle for 15 seconds and then to handle it for the same amount of time. During this phase their visual behaviour and their brain activation were recorded respectively by a wearable eye-tracker glasses and an EEG headset.
After the test, an in-depth interview was conducted to assess the rational perception, the expectations, the intention to buy and the willingness to pay for the wine bottles. Results highlighted the role of both paper and embellishment in enhancing label visual saliency and equity on the shelf and in influencing consumers’ perception, expectation and purchase behaviour. Moreover, an interesting reciprocal influence of visual and tactile features on each other was found.

This study provides preliminary insight into the challenges and opportunities present for wine in the process of adaptation to the modern business environment. This study is being conducted within the Swiss wine sector due to the unique characteristics and value of Swiss wine, culture, and the capacity to access key individuals within the Swiss wine sector and its supporting network. These specific features of the Swiss wine sector offer the potential to probe respondents for depth of information on digitization, whilst maintaining more control over extraneous variables that may otherwise impact research results.
This study utilizes the Delphi method for the purpose of investigating the opinions, ideas and suggestions of key individuals in the Swiss wine sector. Each respondent’s feedback is being collected for the convergence of ideas and process of implementation. Divergent responses will all be compiled and synthesized, before returning an anonymised compilation to every respondent for subsequent review and comment. Subsequent rounds of this process will continue until data saturation is achieved. The results of this study will be used to prepare a framework outlining the process and scope of considerations in the successful digitization of the Swiss wine sector.

Data was sought from all wineries producing more than 10,000 cases per year across all of California wine regions. 219 such wineries were identified yielding a representative sample of 106 producers across the state. Women were found to represent 38.1% of all leadership roles in the industry. As wineries grow larger, the percentage of women tends to decline. Women tend to be over-represented in staff roles and under-represented in line positions, which is consistent with other US industry. California’s wine industry has made significant progress in bringing women into management roles in the industry. Recommendations are offered for further improvement.

The fact that Canada domestically grows Vitis vinifera and produces various types of table wines may still come to some as a surprise, yet it is true. The geographic location and common association of Canada with a cold climate, the relatively small size of the Canadian wine industry (especially in comparison to wine giants like France or the United States (US), for example) are the main reasons why the industry still lacks international exposure. Because of that, to the average wine consumer in the world, Canada still is not known as being able to grow vinifera and supply domestically made table wines. If anybody in the world happens to know that Canada produces wines, it is usually because of ice wines. Canadian ice wines remain the most frequently recognized in the world as being Canadian-made and associated with Canada (Canadian Vintners Association Website statistics accessed on December 5, 2016: http://www.canadianvintners.com/info-centre/wine-statistics/).

The glass of wine that you are having with your dinner, whether in your own home, at a friend’s or a restaurant, is subsidized by the federal taxpayer whenever the growers who produced the grapes that went into the wine protected themselves from a financial loss due to crop failure by purchasing crop insurance. The subsidy has the effect of lowering the price of that glass of wine by reducing the full cost of growing the grapes provided the resulting economic gain is passed along at least in part to the winery and in turn to the vintner, retailer, and finally the consumer.
It follows that crop insurance is a blend of private and social insurance because the cost to the grower of insuring against a crop failure, which is included in the cost of production, no longer is entirely privatized. It is shared with the public through a taxpayer-supported subsidy.
Our objective in the following is to describe the need for crop insurance and its origins, the specific details of the protection for U.S. growers, the private and social costs of producing grapes, and the role of the Agriculture Department. In the following, we do not address table grapes, raisins, damaged vines, or federal area-wide crop insurance. That type of insurance protects the individual producer, not on the basis of his own personal loss, but on the average losses across the area where his vineyard is located. (ProAg nd, np).1 Much more research is needed for a more detailed account of insurance that focuses on wine grapes than is provided herein. To help facilitate that research we provide links to articles and books that examine in greater detail reinsurance, the history of wine grapes, licensing agents and brokers, the history of crop insurance prior to the New Deal, and written agreements between growers and insurers.
Our primary emphasis in the following is not on the grapes or the wine but on the human agents involved: the grower, the insurer, and the taxpayer.

Since the early 1990s, there has been a remarkable export boom of natural resource- based products from Chile, including wine, farmed salmon, forestry and wood prod- ucts. This phenomenon is surprising, considering the monopolistic role played by ad- vanced countries in these industries (e.g. Italy, France and Spain in the wine industry; Norway, Scotland and Canada in the salmon industry). It also raises questions on whether the conditions under which it is taking place are any different from those that in the past led to the repeated failures of a development model based mostly on the exports of natural resources.
From a traditional sector totally oriented to the domestic market and in deep crisis due to political and economic instability, the Chilean wine industry has gained international recognition since the early 1990s. It has become a large export-oriented industry -over 60 percent of the production is currently exported- together with other non-traditional industries such as salmon. Chile has been gradually identified by international con- sumers as an ideal country for producing modern varietal (fresh and fruity), good- value-for-money wines, and it has won worldwide recognition in the wine community faster than any other country in modern history (Phillips, 2000). This is a striking achievement, considering that until the 1970s Chilean wines were confined to the niche of decent-but-not-great wines, based on few varieties cultivated and the relative homo- geneity of their taste.
This paper analyses whether and how, under the globalizing trends that began in the last quarter of the twentieth century, Chile was able to transform some of its primary commodities such as wine into high-quality, diversified, processed goods, with increas- ing value-added content and export price per unit, thus becoming a platform for devel- opment. In particular, as a complement to previous studies, this paper looks specifically at the role of knowledge intensive services in the Chilean wine sector. It is based on the hypothesis is that these services have allowed Chilean wineries to add value to their wine exports and constantly improve their operations along the different stages of the value chain.
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes Chile’s remarkable wine export performance and reviews previous studies regarding the main factors that explain this expansion. Section 3 provides a description of the five main segments of the wine value chain and the multiple service inputs within each one of them. The motivations to produce these services in-house or subcontract are discussed in section 4. The results of a survey, carried out in the context of this study, to assess which services are produced in-house or outsourced are discussed in section 5. The last section con- cludes and provides suggestions for future research.

Little research has considered the potential influence of distant, external pressures on the implementation of firms’ ‘green’ innovations, nor how internal firm resources might moderate this relationship. By combining institutional and resource-based theories and examining 649 firms in Australia, I find that export intensity is positively associated with green innovations. Further, as women in leadership roles increases in firms, the relationship strengthens between export intensity and green innovations. The results also suggest that greater levels of absorptive capacity among firms strengthens the relationship between export intensity and green innovations. Contributions of the findings are discussed along with limitations and future research opportunities.

Employing resource-based perspectives of the firm as a theoretical foundation, this article empirically examines the relationship between women in two different types of leadership roles and environmentally sustainable firms. I study an unbalanced panel data set of 2,006 wine firms in Australia for the period 2007–2014. The results suggests that when accounting for their individual, independent effects, women in technical leadership roles are positively associated with environmental sustainability, while women in professional leadership roles are not. However, the potential complementarities of women in both roles are explored, their interactive, co-joint (complementary) effect explains significantly more variance in the environmental sustainability variable than their individual effects. The results are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research.

This study examines features of regional clusters and environmental sustainability among member firms. By studying a sample of 646 firms across four regional wine clusters in Australia, the evidence suggests regiona l export intens it y is positive ly associat ed wit h implementation rates of environmentally sustainable practices. Further, as women in leadership roles (as a proxy for social proximity) grow within regional clusters, this strengthens the relationship between export intensity and environmental sustainability. The results advance research on the features of regional clusters that are expected to influence the adoption of organiza tio na l practices among member firms. Conclusio ns are presented along with limitations and future research opportunities.

This study investigates the impact of working capital management (WCM) on firm profitability in the French wine industry. Based on annual data of 430 wine-producing firms from 2003 to 2014, we estimated the impact of the cash conversion cycle (CCC) and its components (days inventory, receivable and payable) on the return on assets. Other firm factors, such as size, growth, tangibility and leverage, were used for control. We took into account nonlinearity, unobservable heterogeneity, heteroscedasticity and endogeneity through the two-step GMM estimation method and showed that WCM did not have a significant impact on the profitability of French wine firms. Furthermore, we found no optimal level of CCC that would allow the firms to maximize their profitability. Only days account receivable and payable significantly and negatively impacted profitability. These results differ from those of previous studies and suggest that French wine firms should shorten the time both to collect cash from sales and pay providers. Contrarily to what we believe, the delay in converting inventories to cash does not significantly impact profitability. The managerial implications of these results were further explored by interviewing three wine firms in the south of France.

o The purpose of this paper was to investigate perceptions and current experiences with kegged wine (also known as wine-on-tap). Winery owners, winemakers, and other winery employees from various U.S. wine growing regions responded to an online survey.
o Some wineries produce kegged wine on their own, while others use third-party kegging facilities. Eco-friendliness and wine quality preservation were considered important, yet not identified as primary motivators. Increasing sales volume and competitive advantages, on the other hand, were driving the adoption of kegged wine.
o On average, the estimated sales price for a keg (5.16 Gallons) of white wine was US$ 174 and for a red wine keg US$225. Kegged wine accounted for almost 9% of the wineries’ annual production volume. Most wineries used the same brand for their kegged wine as for their bottled wine.
o The findings of this study provide initial insights into experiences, reasons, and perceptions related to the adoption of a recent wine packaging innovation: kegged wine. The sample was mostly comprised of California wineries, a market where distances between wineries and third party kegging specialists are relatively short; therefore, the generalization of the results may be restricted.

China is one of the most attractive wine markets and a hopeful wine producer in the 21st century. Current studies of wine in China tend to focus on the wine market but seldom analyze the domestic wine industry which contributes approximately 80% of the total wine consumed in the country while Westerners know little of it. This paper analyzes the current situation and the perspectives of the wine industry in China considering both traditional conditions such as wine history, wine policies as well as recent conditions such as e- commerce, climate change and domestic economy trend. We conduct a “SWOT” of the Chinese wine industry considering four sectors (producing, processing, selling and consuming) and use a SWOT Matrix analysis. Then we provide strategies for the development of the Chinese industry from governmental level, industrial level and enterprises level.

After decades of inflationary applied advertisement investments in tv-, print and online media, todays’ consumers are exhausted. They switch tv-channels when commercials are being broadcasted, they bin promotion material when checking the letter box, they erase online- newsletters without having read them. ‘Wines of Germany’ (Deutsches Weininstitut DWI) conquers the given situation with word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing and –communications work. Presentations, seminars, press-, online- and social media work as well as conceptual sales impulses for the on- and off trade or gastronomy all serve a common goal: credible WOM recommendations. Combined with innovative and emotional communications work, the WOM action led to an increase in public awareness for Wines of Germany. It correlates with a moderate but steady increase in domestic and export value in an extremely competitive market. On the long run, memorable encounters of real people in real life situations (WOM) play a more effective and therefore central role in the sought-after awareness upswing then solely advertisements.
It must be frustrating for marketing experts that it is increasingly difficult to actually reach people. Social media marketing (SMM) made us believe that there’s an easy way to consumer’s attention – but it turned out to be more complicated: first of all social media activities always ask for authenticity, it never works to simply utilize existing promotion posters vertically through all media channels. People are very sensitive when it comes to credibility. Secondly, e.g. Facebook posts are not automatically being projected in your peer’s timeline any more (without paying for it). The more effective way is to reach influencers and multipliers through memorable situations, in order to make them tell your story/ spread your word (WOM). Therefore, DWI focuses on “ambassadors” - internally within the branch as well as externally in relations to the public – in order to initiate as many WOM impulses as possible.

Over the last years there has been a debate about the “structural change” in emerging economies and their impact on the understanding of development. New types of structuralisms are discussed using the concept of value chain in certain production sectors that have undergone significant changes.
The objective of this paper is to contribute to the debate about the structural change of the Argentine grape-wine growing sector using the dual analysis of “Strengths and Governance”.
First of all, we wish to point out that viticultural production is carried out in imperfect markets where prices are the result of an asymmetric negotiation between the purchasing power of a demand that is concentrated in a few firms and an atomized supply that is in the hands of thousands of producers. We analyze the strengths resulting from the interaction between the internal factors characteristic of the production unit and the external forces that operate within a given business organization. We describe the manner in which the supplier is related to the resources and the markets. We combine the above analysis with the governance approach, which refers to the manner in which the relationship among the several actors engaged in grape-wine growing is governed. We also analyze the relationships between firms and institutional mechanisms through which coordination actions are implemented outside the market. Emphasis is laid on the importance of explicitly incorporating institutionality into the analysis of the grape-wine growing sector chain so as to make sure that enforcement agencies comply with decisions reached by “consensus”.
One first conclusion of the study refers to the complementariness of both approaches and, in both cases, there is a continuous segment that spans from “decentralized coordination to a more centralized one”. By learning how value chains are governed, it is possible to know how they affect suppliers’ “upgrade” (increasing the added value of the chain through innovation). The upgrade is illustrated with a case study in which the knowledge acquired by the innovative firm is spread within the grape-wine growing sector, giving rise to a positive externality that may be internalized by means of suitable public policy instruments.

Table wines do not shine like Malbec does in Argentina's wine industry; nonetheless
they represent two thirds of the wine produced in this country. A key economic indicator of this product is the price of the "vino de traslado” (bulk wine). A grape% grower has two options with his grape: he can sell it or he can elaborate wine (the “bulk wine”) and sell it later to a large winery. Thus, the price of the “bulk wine” is a reference of the incomes of grape%growers and small wineries.

In the last five years, this price has been very low, and consequently governments of wine provinces are under social pressure to implement policies to raise it by restricting wine supply and/or by buying wine. Why is this price so low? From a sectorial perspective, there is overproduction, with the consequent increase in wine stocks. This hypothesis is strengthened by the declining domestic consumption of this wine in Argentina for several decades, as well as in other major wine producing countries.

However, there is another view, a crisis one. Over a period of more than three decades, this reference price reaches the minimum levels in each recession in Argentina. After a while, in every economic recovery, this price has increased very strongly. Macroeconomic impacts seem strong.
This study will show in numbers both impacts (of overproduction and recession) on the price of “bulk wine” in the Argentine case. Given the relevance of this price for the grape%grower, the study will analyze the evolution of the producer share in the final price of wine (paid by consumers). In these years of low prices, producers have complained of lower share and there is a question whether this phenomenon is a trend observed over time.

The aim of the study is to analyze the capital structure of the Hungarian and the French wine industries and to examine the funding models. First, the database and the applied methods will be described followed by the descriptive statistical analysis of the industry. The analysis indicates the capital structure policy applied in the industry and, at the same time, evaluates its performance in terms of profitability and efficiency. The analysis examines the differences between the funding policies applied in the two countries, especially those variables that are the basis for the separation of the two branches. This was carried out by means of discriminant analysis, which indicates the financing characteristics. The main conclusion of the study is that the behavior of the factors explaining the development of the capital structure is significantly different in the examined countries.

This document presents the current state of the brewing industry in Latin America with special attention given to micro brewing firms. We find that the market conditions in Latin America are favorable to significant growth in the brewing industry and particularly for craft and specialty beers. This study draws on a general overview of the industry in the region as well on five different countries.

Research by many scholars studying consumer behavior has determined that choice overload can be a demotivating characteristic for consumers faced with a broad array of options. However this has yet to be studied at the wine retail level. Wine is unlike most consumer goods due to the large number of intrinsic characteristics relative to extrinsic ones, and the sheer number of choices in the category a consumer must choose from. Also salient is the general concept that as a wine consumer grows in experience they desire a broader range of choices.
A three-part study was designed to test for the existence of the choice overload effect: first a qualitative survey was sent to 4000 wine consumers (from a retailer’s email database) in order to establish a baseline of self- reported behavior in a wine shop environment. Next over 100 customers were observed as they shopped in a group of wine stores. Finally those same customers were interviewed post-purchase about their satisfaction with the wines they purchased.
Analysis of the data generated showed no evidence of the choice overload effect in any of the three phases of the study. An examination of how this retailer was able to mitigate and even eliminate the impact of choice overload was discussed, and points to future research in this field.

This paper explores recent developments in outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) from Chinese companies in the wine sector in the Bordeaux (France) and West Australia (WA) regions. The objective is to explore the extent of the phenomenon, which although widely mediatized, has not been the subject of academic scrutiny. As OFDI official figures provide little detail, we undertook primary research in the two regions, in addition to analysis of secondary trade data.
Results indicate that the level of Chinese OFDI is relatively low, although the number and speed of acquisitions, especially in Bordeaux, has attracted attention. The motivations of investors in both regions were: the exploitation of growth in the home market; security of supply; prestige and diversification of risk. In Bordeaux the ‘appellation’ was a clear motivation, as were the vineyards’ historic buildings. A final motivating factor was the wish to avoid the complex supply chains in Bordeaux, by bringing wine direct to the Chinese market. In Australia, cementing existing business relationships, as well as access to Australian residency were specific motivations. Both regions have a relatively open investment climate and no significant investment barriers were noted, although the potential exists, especially as evidence emerges of illegal funding of some investments. We conclude with some directions for future research.

Argentinean wineries experienced a tremendous 4-time growth in their export value between 2000 and 2012, while for the same period the average rise of world wine exports was around 70%. Today, Argentina is the 9th biggest wine exporter in the world. The country has succeeded in building ”king of Malbec” notoriety and many of its wines rank as best sellers in foreign markets. This impressive growth is the result of the winning strategies wineries implemented years ago. Indeed, in the late 90’s the industry changed its model to focus on the production of quality wines and the development of foreign markets. New marketing and communication tools were created and have strongly contributed to wineries ́ success. Two decades later, new challenges for this quality model appear. On the one hand, wineries ́ margins are threatened by high inflation in Argentina. On the other hand, higher buyers ́ concentration in foreign markets defines wineries ́ reduced bargaining power. A descriptive analysis, based on Argentina Customs Office data, was carried out to understand last years ́ performance and identify possible trends. Grape varieties, vintages, price, marketplaces and bottle sizes are described. Main differences between foreign markets are pointed out. Four different categories of wineries are described based on their export volume. Their specific strategies in terms of price segment are assessed allowing an identification of their different profiles. Results show the price upgrading strategy of the Argentinean industry. Cheap wines have traded up towards premium category as the only way to deal with inflation pressures. Whereas some expensive wine have traded down towards premium category in an attempt to conquer consumers threatened by the ongoing economic crisis.

The relationships between cooperation and competition are a central element of geographically defined clusters. This article advances an understanding of the cooperation–competition nexus by examining how firms in three regional wine clusters in Australia engage in knowledge exchanges about climate change. The findings suggest that, in the main, firms across all three regions appear to be predominantly engaging in these specific knowledge exchanges within their own narrow sub-clusters. This so-called ‘liquid geography’ is suggestive of a somewhat competitive lock-out posture. However, firms in ‘elite’ sub-clusters appear to be cooperating more via external knowledge exchanges, albeit perhaps with self-interest in mind. The results also suggest that only with respect to adaptive climate change innovations (as opposed to mitigative innovations) do implementation rates differ. This appears to be advantaging firms in elite sub-clusters over all other firms in the regions. Implications are discussed along with future research directions.

When cash-strapped Pierre Lafond opened Santa Barbara Winery, the first urban winery of its kind, in downtown Santa Barbara, CA in 1964, he did not realize that his model one day would become a global movement. Now, after 50 years, the urban winery and movement has burst beyond its initial urban dwelling to over 200 urban wineries on four continents. What initially began as a practical and cost-wise decision by Lafond, against the prohibitively expensive and traditional rural winery-vineyard combination, has ripened into a globalized phenomenon. True to its urban appellation, the urban winery and movement has converged with the recent and on-going gentrification and urban renewal taking place across America and abroad. More importantly, the urban winery and movement has not only captured the attention of world-renown wine critics, such as Robert Parker, but also the newest generation of oenophiles, the Millennials. Indeed, the urban wineries’ recent successes mirror those of their sibling industries: beer and spirits. Because the urban winery and movement has and will continue to grow globally, it needs to be adequately examined and defined. As such, an urban winery must meet two criteria: first, it is a premise in which wine is produced for consumption or sale within a defined territory or area of more than 2,500 people; second, it is categorized first into one of three “purist” or commercial winery models (proprietary, custom crush, or DIY), then, if applicable, a following “blended” model that incorporates one or more of these functions: gastro, entertainment, oenotourism, and education. Just as humans began to cultivate grapes in the first vineyards millennia ago, globalized grapes are being crushed under humanity’s monumental and historical migration from the rural environment into the urban one – a migration marked by the advent of the urban winery. In the end, the urban winery and movement reminds oenophiles everywhere that there is more than one way to crush a grape.

Gender diversity in the workplace is considered both an economic and ethical imperative and as such has garnered substantial research attention. To advance the literature, this study analyzes firm-level predictors of women in top management roles across all wine producers in Australia between 2007 and 2013. In the main, firm size reduces the likelihood of women representation in top roles, as predicted. Firms with strong environmental sustainability credentials are more likely to have higher levels of women’s representation in top roles, including in CEO and marketer roles, supporting our hypothesis. However, contrary to the prediction, high export orientations within firms were found to negatively impact women’s representation in top roles; namely, women in the CEO and winemaker roles. The findings are discussed and future research directions put forth.

Recent studies about catching up are often focused on the emergence of high-tech sectors such as electronics, software, pharmaceutical and telecommunications. These industries are indeed globally known for having sparked economic growth in some selected countries, such as Japan and South Korea in the eighties and nineties, and India and China in more recent years. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that in a large number of emerging countries the agro-food industry still significantly contributes to GDP. Though often depicted as low value-added and with little innovation content, the agro-food industry is a sector with considerable opportunities for technological and rent upgrading. UNCTAD (2009) has identified a group of dynamic and competitive middle-income countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile Thailand and Malaysia, which have become exporters of high-quality processed primary products. Some authors have envisaged an undergoing process of de-commodification of primary commodities, which are increasingly transformed from standardized staples into high-quality, diversified, processed goods, with raising barriers of entry, high knowledge intensity and technological dynamism, increasing value added content and high export price per unit (Farinelli, 2012; Kaplinsky and Fitter, 2004; Kaplinsky, 2005; Perez et al, 2009).
Among the most dynamic primary industries there is wine, which is an extremely interesting case from a catch up point of view because the latecomers in the international market have changed how wine is produced, sold and consumed and in doing so they have challenged the position held by the incumbents (Giuliani et al, 2011). Until the end of the 1980s without a doubt, European countries, and particularly France and Italy, dominated the international market for wine. Subsequently, significant changes into the market, namely the decrease in consumption in traditional consuming countries, the entry of new inexperienced consumers and the increasing importance of large distribution have put under attack this supremacy. Initially the USA and Australia and later emerging countries such as Chile and South Africa have gained increasing market shares in terms of both exported volumes and values at the expense of the incumbents. More recently, due to the higher involvement of consumers and the increasing attention to variety and regional specificities in some market segments a new comer as Australia has slowed down its growth, opening up opportunities to newer entrants such as Argentina and New Zealand. At the same time, innovation has also interested the incumbents, in particularly Italy, which has challenged the leadership of France in some key markets such the USA (Mariani et al., 2012).
Finally, some further future changes can be envisaged in the new rapidly growing Asian markets, still representing a small share of the global demand but with a lot of potentialities of becoming a new key scene in the wine industry.
In this paper we aim at investigating the different catch up cycles occurring from the 1960s until 2010 in the global wine sector through a detailed analysis of exports in volume, value and unit price. This analysis allows addressing issues related with the increasing share in the global market of latecomer countries and the relative decline of the incumbents, as well as possible changes in the market leadership within these two groups.
In the next section after a brief account of the literature on catch up we focus on catch up in the wine industry since the 1960s. Then, in the Section 3 we present an analysis of the evolution of the industry investigated based on trade data. Section 4 provides a detailed analysis of the entry of the New World (NW) producers explaining how market changes opened up a window of opportunity and then followed transformations in the innovative and knowledge base and in the institutional settings. The following section focuses on the resurgence of Old Word (OW)1 countries in the international markets. In Section 6, we discuss about the rise of new actors among the latecomers. Section 7 puts forward the hypothesis of a new cycle following the emergence of Asia both as a rapidly growing market and as a new production source. Section 8 concludes.

In 1989, the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was implemented and dramatically changed the course of the wine industry’s development in British Columbia (BC). The FTA forced the industry to make the transition from being highly protected, and inefficient, to a competitive market contender. Although considered initially to be a victim of the FTA, by 2010, the BC wine industry contributed $295.8 million to the BC economy, or 0.15% of provincial GDP, and provided 5,100 direct and indirect jobs; and is now considered by many to be a remarkable BC success story. This investigation traces the evolution of the industry from 2000 to 2010 by examining the structural changes that occurred in the industry’s value chain during that period.
The study employs and industry cluster model to identify the relationships between the firms located in the Okanagan region. Results from the study show the growth in value added from all sectors of the value chain and identify several sources of the industry’s competitive advantage: extensive vertical integration, and a strong relationship to the tourism cluster. Conclusions are provided regarding the future challenges and opportunities facing the industry.

This paper focuses on the magnitude, variety, and sources of innovation introduced by the Chilean and Argentine wine industries during the past two decades. It analyzes whether the prolonged export growth of Chilean and Argentine wines has been achieved by building the innovation capacity of local actors and creating domestic linkages with local grape producers, winemakers and input providers, or by relying exclusively upon FDI and knowledge flows generated abroad. In line with the evolutionary tradition, this study explores the hypothesis that, much as in the case of high-tech sectors, the ability of developing countries to enter knowledge-intensive natural resource-based sectors, such as wine, depends on their ability to access capital, technology and knowledge from abroad, that is, on what can be defined as “external” sources of innovation. It also depends, however, on the ability to absorb and adapt imported technology and know-how to the local environment, that is, on the creation of local tacit knowledge and endogenous R&D capabilities.
This paper measures, first of all, the innovativeness of the leading 25 Chilean and of the leading 25 Argentine exporters of bottled wines, and looks at the variety of innovations introduced, focusing not only on new methods of production, but also on the development of new products and new ways of organizing business. Subsequently, it identifies the role played by external sources of innovation such as FDI, as well as capital-embodied and codified knowledge flows in triggering the phenomenal technological upgrading process of the Chilean and Argentine wine industries. Finally, it looks at the role played by internal sources of innovation, namely at the creation of local tacit knowledge and incremental innovation, at the emergence of a wide pool of highly qualified human resources, and at the role of sectoral R&D programmes, local universities and research centres in the creation of endogenous technological capabilities.
This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 measures the innovativeness of the leading 25 Chilean and of the leading 25 Argentine exporters of bottled wines. Section 3 looks at the variety of innovations introduced, focusing – in line with the Schumpeterian tradition – not only on new methods of production, but also on the development of new products and new ways of organizing business. Section 4 looks at the triggering role of FDI in stimulating the phenomenal technological upgrading process of the Chilean and Argentine wine industries over the past two decades. Section 5 focuses on the importance of external sources of innovation in sustaining such a process, namely, on the importance of capital-embodied and codified knowledge flows channelled through imports of foreign machinery and quality certification mechanisms. Section 6 looks at the creation of local tacit knowledge and incremental innovation in the Chilean and Argentine wine industries, and at the emergence of a wide pool of highly qualified local oenologists, agronomists and viticulturalists. Section 7 analyses the role of sectoral R&D programmes and of local universities and research centers in the creation of endogenous technological capabilities. Section 8 concludes with some considerations on the longer-term sustainability of the export boom of Chilean and Argentine wines.

The origins of the Argentinean wine industry can be traced to the Spanish colonial period and the establishment of the Virreinato del Rio de la Plata. However, the emergence of the modern wine industry is explained by the Italian and Spanish immigration of the late XIX century and by the contribution of European specialists hired by emergent Schools of Agriculture such as the Faculty of Agrarian Science from the National University of Cuyo, as it is known nowadays. The planting of French varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tannat and especially Malbec), Italian varieties (Barbera, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Bonarda) and Spanish ones (Tempranillo, Semillón, Pedro Giménez) took place simultaneously with the introduction of the railway in the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan thus favoring immigration and the diffusion of new growing and wine-making techniques. The irrigation system and water management organization also began at the time, giving a key contribution to the wine industry emergence. Big family wineries of Italian (Giol, Gargantini, Tittarelli, Cavagnaro, Filippini, Rutini, etc) and Spanish (Escorihuela, Arizu, Goyenechea, etc) origins were born, grew and consolidated in this period.
During the XX century the Argentinean wine industry experienced periods of expansion triggered by the credence on an unlimited domestic market and periods of intense crisis with disastrous consequences for wineries and grape growers. Public regulations were present in these fluctuations aiming at reducing the negative impacts of recession or aiming at profiting from the expansion period. Wineries, grape growers, governors and congress men gave shape with their actions to the wine industry with diverse impact in the economy of the main wine producing regions: Mendoza and San Juan. Implemented regulations include: temporary plantation prohibitions, tax-breaks programs for specific vine varieties, regulations for sales quantity, public acquisition of grapes and wine for ulterior elimination or distillation, among others. Most of these initiatives only had short term effects thus constantly required new measures. This extensive regulation constitutes a vast experience for all agri-food chains and for the whole Argentinean economy, as it illustrates the short-term and long-term advantages and disadvantages of different measures.

Although it is very difficult to find any research that has been devoted to establish the value of wine education courses on consumers, gatekeepers are pinning a lot of hope on wine education to create or restore value. The purpose of this research was to investigate if wine courses lead to any changes in perception, consumption pattern and modify the consumer’s degree of involvement for the category.
We compared results of the same survey filled in twice by new wine course students in Montreal, Québec, Canada: prior to their first class and at the end of the course five weeks later; followed up by two questionnaires after three and twenty-four months. All survey questions were assessed in a five-point Likert type scale and the outcomes were statistically treated using t-student test.
The results obtained imply that the perceptions, behavior and commitment towards the category changes after having followed a wine course. An economic value was created for the proponent of the courses (the retailer) as the majority of students declared spending more afterwards. In addition, value was also created for the students as they declare an increase in involvement, a sense of empowerment, an increase in frequency of usage of the product but not in the intensity.

The main purpose of this study is to research buyer-seller cooperation in the distribution of Port wine. Eight research hypotheses were derived from data collected by case study, and incorporated into a quantitative questionnaire distributed to commercial directors of 52 producer companies and 49 distributors. A binary probit model was developed to analyze the Likert-scaled answers in valid questionnaires returned by 32 producer respondents and 29 of distributor respondents. The results of the study show that (1) conflict, when permanent and intense, inhibits the development of cooperative relationships; (2) trust is likely to solve conflicts; (3) a combination of trust and adaptation increases the potential for cooperation; and (4) the presence of a foreign employee at the interface between producers and distributors does not negatively affect the level of cooperation. Lastly, cooperation can be considered as an important means of developing skills and resources, which can then be applied to existing transactional relationships.

In 2006 the Irish wine market was growing rapidly along with its Celtic Tiger economy (Euromonitor, 2008). Total wine sales in Ireland more than quadrupled in the seventeen-year span from 1990 to 2007 (Geraghty and Torres, 2009). While wine consumption in Ireland was growing at a rapid rate, US consumption was growing, but at a slower rate. (Euromonitor, 2010). According to Moran, Ireland’s increased consumption of wine was due primarily to improved accessibility, affordability, and branding of wine. Geraghty and Torres conducted research in Galway Ireland in 2006 among 307 wine consumers and identified three clusters of wine consumers in Ireland: the casual wine buyer, the value seeking wine buyer, and the wine traditionalist (Geraghty , 2009). These clusters provided insight into the consumers behind the increase in wine consumption. The recent recession however, has caused the wine sector in Ireland to plummet (Euromonitor, 2010).
The purpose of this research was to compare the California market consumers to the consumers in the Irish market that was growing at a rapid rate to identify similarities and differences in the factors that impact wine demand in the two countries.

Social media use has surged in the past decade. Facebook has 900 million global users (Wall Street Journal, 2012). Recognizing that many of these 900 million users are potential customers (a search on Facebook in May 2012 revealed that there are 11.5 million US Facebook users that “like” wine, beer, or spirits), the wine industry has embraced social media (Vinography, 2012). Wineries are using social media as a tool to reach consumers and as a tool to reveal their brand quality and personality (The Tribune, 2011). In a survey of 118 of Texas’ 181 bonded wineries, nearly 80% of them were actively engaged in social media, with the majority not only using social media for customer connections, but also using social media for establishing industry connections and finding suppliers (Lau et. al, 2011). A survey by ABLE Social Media Marketing revealed that 94% of American wineries are on Facebook and 73% are on twitter (ABLE Social Media Marketing, 2012). They further found that 47% of wineries said that Facebook helps them generate sales and 72% sell wine on their websites.
Bradley and McDonald indicate that knowledge management is what company management tells employees they need to know. In higher education faculty practice knowledge management by telling the students what they need to know. Social media is a method peers use to show connections the content they think is important. Bradley and McDonald believe that organizations can gain value from social media through mass collaboration (Bradley and McDonald, 2011). Since industry, and in particular the wine industry, is using social media to enhance interactions between professionals and with consumers, how is higher education preparing their graduates to use social media in their careers? Have students pursuing wine-related higher education used social media to enhance their learning and prepare them for industry?
A 2011 survey by Pearson Learning among 1,920 professors of higher education, found that almost two-thirds of faculty are using some form of social media for their courses (Moran et. al., 2011). The purpose of this research is to examine how social media is being used to enhance learning among students at California Polytechnic State University. Further, this research aims to identify if there are differences in the attitudes and behaviors of wine and viticulture students compared to other students related to social media and industry information. The wine and viticulture students examined in this research are pursuing degrees in both enology and viticulture.

This study explores the climate change issue in the Tasmanian wine cluster. Following cluster theory, we predict knowledge exchange on climate change is widespread in the overall cluster, while component knowledge on climate change is exchanged more readily than architectural knowledge. We also predict knowledge exchange on climate change is more widespread within sub-clusters than between them. Using network analysis and a quantitative approach, all three hypotheses are rejected. A discussion of the findings and their implications is presented along with future research directions.

Wine for home consumption in Pennsylvania is, with the exclusion of winery sales, purchased from the state owned monopoly stores. The flow of wine from its sources, through the Pennsylvania monopoly system and to the consumer is tracked in this study. Volumes and values of wine from around the world are compared in the Pennsylvania marketplace. The popularity of many types, varieties, and styles of wine are compared. Seasonality of consumer preference is discussed.

This study explores the relevancy of climate change to business using a sample of wine firms operating in Margaret River, Western Australia, one of the premier wine regions of the world. Using a qualitative approach based on thematic analysis, the results challenge the extent to which climate change is a salient stakeholder, while demonstrating that the phenomenon may, in fact, be beneficial. Response actions towards climate change demonstrate both mitigative and adaptive actions, although differences in their level and rate of implementation appear to be attributable to a mix of normative and instrumental trade-offs. Implications of the findings are discussed, with a particular focus on location theory and economic barriers as a key driver of trade-offs between the choice of mitigative or adaptive response to climate change.

In this paper, we explore the developing wine markets of Japan and Singapore for New Zealand wine. Apart from several reflections from the authors regarding their experiences looking specifically at the prevalence of New Zealand wine in these two Asian markets, this paper is largely a conceptual review of the literature along with descriptive statistics illustrating the current state of affairs regarding the topic of interest.

Studying the involvement variable is key to explaining consumer behaviour. The aim of the current research is to analyse the effect that the individual’s temporary involvement with the appellation of origin has on the process of the decision to purchase agro-food products. It is proposed and confirmed a measurement of the consumer’s temporary involvement by three properties defining its cognitive base: number of associated values, centrality of these values and intensity of the relation. To examine the influence of the temporary involvement, we consider the cognitive, affective and behavioural responses that make up the decision process. Here, the analysis focuses on the product category of wine.

The worldwide emergence of blogs (or weblogs) has presented marketers with a new communication channel. In the wine industry little is understood about wine blogging practices and motivations. This exploratory study examines the profile, motivations and several technical and marketing features of international wine bloggers. In general, the findings suggest that international wine bloggers are a niche community, relatively young and dynamic in the world of blogs. They tended to blog for self-promotion rather than diversion, using Wordpress platform, Google analytics counter and Creative Commons licence. Furthermore, this study indicates the minor role of advertisement and the practice of rating wines as a strategy to increase the profitability of the blog.

The analysis in this report is structured around a theoretical framework I have developed for the larger comparative project- that industry competitiveness depends on policies that guide: markets, institutions, networks, and supply chains. We apply the framework to the British Columbia (BC) Canada wine industry, with an emphasis on the area with the greatest concentration, the Okanagan Valley (OKV). Our approach focuses on the potential role of public and collective support institutions to promote industry competitiveness in clusters. By clusters, we mean geographically concentrated producers in the same industry. I take an evolutionary view of the role of such institutions, reflecting my recent work that a successful public-private partnership requires continual adaptation to changes in markets (Hira, forthcoming). I therefore completely reject the false dichotomy that prevails that either markets (private companies) or states (governments) determine economic success. Productive public-private interactions are fundamental to successful industries. The analysis in this report strongly reinforces this point- to be successful BC needed and will need public-private partnerships that are responsive, flexible, and pro-active.

Globalization is challenging the very core of organizations and firms’ strategies in the traditional European wine regions characterized by a terroir orientation, whose context shows that their wine small and medium enterprises (SME), are probably unwilling and unable to produce large and low-cost, standardised quantities of wine, with the sales supported by heavy marketing campaigns. The main aim of this paper is to present a business strategy that can be adopted for wine SME located in regions with high production costs and where tradition and terroir are relevant factors, to be introduced in the decision process. To achieve this goal, it is presented the case of five small wine producer-bottlers, located in the Portuguese conservative Douro Demarcated Region (DDR), that are developing an innovative approach through the adoption of an informal horizontal network nominated Douro Boys. The analysis conducted in this work allows us to conclude that we are in the presence of a very simple and informal structure of prospectors, with a high culture of innovation, searching niches in international wine markets.

Globalization is challenging the core business of wine industry, especially in traditional European producers’ countries, like Portugal, characterized by a terroir model, i.e., an economic structure supported by a large number of grape-growers, small and medium wine firms and high public regulation, to compete in international markets. Using a cluster approach, this paper presents the case of the most important Portuguese wine region, the Demarcated Douro Region (DDR), which is a strong reference of terroir and known for producing Port wine. To increase its competitiveness in the world wine market, the DDR needs to evolve from an organized to an innovative cluster.

In the last twenty years the European wine market has been confronted with major changes at the economic and the regulatory levels. The emergence of new producing countries has significantly increased the amount of competition, reinforcing the global dimension of the wine market. This has happened in a context where the overall drop in wine consumption is only partially compensated by commercial access to new markets in the Far East and Africa. Between 2000 and 2006, the level of global wine exports increased by 31% in terms of volume, and 75% in terms of value, which also attests to the improvement in quality of the wine being traded1. The largest exporters globally are Italy, France, Australia and Spain; and, within Europe, Italy, France and Spain, followed by Germany and Portugal2.
The dynamics of international trade evidence the good performance of Italy and, especially, Australia, which in the period 2000-2006 increased its exports by 1.4% and 2.8% respectively in terms of value (by 0.4% and 3.9% in terms of volume). However, it was France that registered the worst performance (a decline of 6.4% in terms of quantity, and 5.4% in terms of value).
The more recent dynamics from 2008 show the slowdown of growth in the export of wine worldwide3. Among the European countries, only Spain and, marginally, Germany increased the amount of wine exported. The United States remains the largest importer of European wine both in terms of quantity and quality4. Other important trends in commercial trade concern the slowdown of growth in wine exported by the New World (Australia, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa), and the increase in the bulk wine traded globally and bottled in the countries in which it is distributed5.
The increased competition has not only put more pressure on traditional producers but they have also been confronted with new competitive dynamics: these are not particularly focused on territorial advantage, but are oriented particularly towards trademarks and brand-based development strategies.
Relationships between production and distribution, and the transformation of channels have changed in the last 10 years also due to the widespread use of online selling. The emergence of specialised distribution companies as well as the increasing role of large distribution chains in food and drinks markets reflect these changes, but also have redesigned the wine value chain requiring profound changes, in particular: a more stringent coordination between production and distribution; reallocating power and value along the chain for the benefit of those enterprises able to control access to the retail markets. This is a global phenomenon, significantly influenced by the increasing concentration of distribution enterprises in Europe and throughout the world.
The recent economic crisis has put additional pressure on competitive dynamics, favouring a reallocation of value in favour of the parts of the wine chain oriented towards medium price demand rather than niche production.
Within this scenario, the recent European reform of the Common Market Organisation of Wine has tried to enhance the competitiveness of the European wine market by searching for an adequate balance among the preservation of territorial competitive advantages, enhancement of innovation production processes, market transparency and consumer protection6. The European wine industry is still primarily based on denominations of origins, which are self or co-regulated regimes.
The private organizations entrusted with regulatory power concerning compliance with D.O. requirements and other safety requirements constitute large regulatory blocs which influence the formation of networks among firms belonging to the same D.O. The protection of collective reputation requires peer monitoring since when a single producer violates quality requirements it is likely that all the producers within the DO will suffer damage. Furthermore, the success of individual entrepreneurs within a D.O. may generate positive externalities on the other producers increasing both the price of wine and the value of land.
The European wine market also shows high fragmentation in terms of land ownership and the size of enterprises operating in the sector, in particular regarding grape-growers and wine producers. The average size of vineyards in Italy is 1.5 ha, in France is 8.8 ha, in Portugal is 1.2 ha, in Spain 5.9 ha and in Hungary 0.5 ha7.
Family businesses are still the main commercial model, at least at the production level, and grapes production is often a part-time activity for land owners8. At the land ownership level, the European policy on grubbing-up has partially influenced this fragmentation, favouring the reduction of production potential. At least in principle the expiry of this policy in the near future might bring new changes in ownership allocation and size of enterprises.
Reducing effective capacity to access innovation processes, knowledge-based services, trademarks development strategies, and internationalisation patterns, the small size of enterprises does not help them in facing the current global competition. A move towards vertical integration can be observed at some levels, partially directed to expanding control over land, but more intensively directed to expanding control over trademarks and access to markets. These growth strategies are not easily accessible for all the enterprises (and have been pursued mostly by distributors or final producers), and are deeply influenced by the regulatory context at the national level related to land use regulation, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate groups. Some special changes have taken place in Eastern Europe, where, though within legal constraints, some limited concentration of production firms was triggered by foreign penetration, and by the transfer in the control over ex-State-owned enterprises.
A different response to entrepreneurial fragmentation can be seen in inter-firm collaboration This has not occurred so much in the area of market-type relations, as spot relations mostly driven by price dynamics, but more so in the area of intensively collaborative relations, which have mostly been driven by knowledge-based investments, the pooling of complementary strategic resources, and fiduciary ties. The path towards inter-firm collaboration is not without obstacles: these include governance issues concerning the provision of adequate incentives for cooperation in a context in which independent firms might continue to compete at some level, and to cooperate at other levels. However, the opportunity for sharing critical resources, enabling innovation processes which would otherwise be inaccessible, might represent a very important competitive advantage in the current scenario. This paper explores the conditions and the factors influencing these collaborative dynamics both at the domestic and the European levels.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of the identification1 and the packaging of bottled wines on the consumer decision. A case study is conducted in order to quantify the weight of determinants of wine purchase such as origin and variety, i.e. the identification factor, bottle shape, bottle colours and label style (elements of packaging). The analysis of the relative importance of these factors is based on conjoint measurement. A real buying decision without tasting the wine is simulated and conjoint analysis is applied to measure the utility of wine characteristics. The results show that wine packaging has a significant impact on the buying decision. Furthermore, it can be stated that the influence of the exterior product design differs strongly across customer segments.

The findings of an experimental study exploring the taste testing of wine with varying degrees of expertise and in the presence of variations in quality, brand and country of origin (COO) cues are reported. Novices experienced difficulty in evaluating quality and even when detecting a quality difference were unable to assign an intelligent meaning to that difference. Experts did use physical quality and price evaluations, but in a complex and unexpected manner. Novices were found to use brand name in a limited fashion and relied mainly on COO information. The results demonstrated the importance of the extrinsic cues for both novices and experts. Surprisingly, there was no clear evidence of domestic preference.

France is one of the largest and most ancient wine producers in the world. Even if its leading position has been challenged over the past decade, France remains a reference in terms of terroir and quality (Anderson, 2001; Berthomeau and al., 2002). Among the different well-known French wine regions, Champagne has a very unique status. Champagne covers less than 4% of the French vineyard whilst representing more than 1/3 of the total of French exports in value (37%).
Several economists (Barrère, 2000, 2001 et 2003 ; Ménival, 2007 ; Rasselet, 2001 ;
Viet, 2003) think that Champagne’s economic success is due to its particular institutional
model, composed of an interprofession, the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne
12
(CIVC) and an AOC (appellation d’origine controlee) , two separate institutions which work
together quite effectively. This model enabled Champagne producers to adapt their offer to the evolving international demand, both in quantity and in quality, and to maintain the equilibrium between grape-growers and Champagne Houses thanks to a fair sharing of the
3
added value. Thanks to the mid-term interprofessional contracts that existed between 1959
and 1989, the CIVC was able to control prices and quantities for a long time. However the liberalization of the markets in the 1990’s led to the end of the interprofessional contracts and grape-price control, which considerably reduced the regulation power of the CIVC. Nowadays it can only control the quantities produced through the management of planting rights and yields at the harvest, which is completed by a “reserve mechanism”.
This model of economic growth has now reached a dead end with the total surfaces of
the Champagne area planted. The situation is unique in the world and leads to the following
paradox: between 2000 and 2007, sales increased much faster than the production. At first, it allowed to reduce huge stocks, but very quickly it resulted in the inflation of the grape and wine prices. This situation, characterized by a lack of control on prices, was called the prosperity crisis. It led Champagne producers to launch a big project to revise the production area, the homogeneity and coherence of which had long been discussed. This working paper aims at answering the following questions: What led the Champagne producers to launch the revision project? How are they going to proceed? What will be the consequences?

This article addresses the nature of wine clusters in international perspective bringing together two separate literatures, the cluster/networks one and the one on the development of the wine industry, to analyze the mechanisms of innovation that have emerged in the sector. The study of innovation is often linked to economic clusters (Niosi 2005; Wolfe and Lucas 2004a; 2005), both as an analytical tool and as a policy option in the fostering of innovation and development (Feser, Renski, and Goldstein 2008; OECD 1999; 2002; Palazuelos 2005), even if not all effects of clustering are positive (Palazuelos 2005). The wine industry has received extensive attention through the use of cluster analysis (Alvarez 2007; Aylward 2004; Mytelka and Goertzen 2004; McDermott 2007; Hickton and Padmore 2005; Larreina and Aguado 2008). In general terms, clusters have been used in a broad multidisciplinary fashion and the approach has been applied to a host of issues (Boschma 2005; Malmberg and Power 2005) but this has also contributed to a reduction of its analytical sharpness and has fostered the emergence of different meanings for what should be similar concepts (Martin and Sunley 2003; see also Feser, Renski, and Goldstein 2008). However, we believe that cluster and network analysis can be used within the context of a multi-layered approach to the study of innovation policy in the wine industry. Clusters exhibit broad differences among them, by nation, by sector and by analytical approach and alongside them we often find networks. However, clusters and networks are different things with the latter embedded in the former. Both coalesce according to elective affinities, shared goals and layered interests among people. The fact that the clusters analyzed here are market clusters adds a powerful incentive to succeed, but also adds a high sensitivity on initial conditions.
Clusters coalesce geographically, while networks coalesce ideationally. This makes the latter a bit more flexible geographically: for example, global pipelines exist and networks of academics are relatively common if generally show low intensity. The 'quality' of the network embedded in the cluster may be the key to cluster success or at least a strong prerequisite of it (Eisingerich, Bell, and Tracey 2010). Therefore, we also argue that the relative degrees of success enjoyed by the various wine clusters reflect their ability to respond to shocks in the industry and the capacity of the institutional setting in which they exist to channel and foster some of the responses and activities generated by these shocks. Cluster theory offers some important fixed points from which the analysis of these agglomerations of actors can begin. Besides the notion that clusters occupy a (sometimes difficult to define) geographical area, they are internally heterogeneous in terms of the actors that compose them. Along with a broad range of firms (suppliers, service providers, banks, and so forth) we find public entities like universities and government institutions. Actors establish both traded and untraded linkages with one another, and they do so within an area of geographical proximity.i
In our analysis we are also cognizant of the fact that clusters and networks are not the sole level at which the process of innovation develops and that a multilevel approach that would include both regional systems of innovation and the national innovation policy from which many regulation, policy and economic dimensions depend (Aharonson, Baum, and Plunket 2008), is also critical in understanding the deployment of innovation. Regulation is going to affect both cluster structure (for example by creating specific organizations) and network capacity (by affecting the flow and ease of information). Regarding wine clusters, the above-noted characteristics apply with two provisos. First, the wine industry itself is highly dependant on a scarce supply of specific terroirs placed within amenable climatic zones. Second, because tradition and quality are very important, the degree of innovation that the cluster may absorbe could be different from that of other industries.
In the next section, we highlight the literature on innovation, and in section three we deal with the literature on the wine industry. In the successive section we explore the specific nature of the countries that we have chosen as subjects of our analysis: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Chile, France, Germany, Spain and South Africa. Finally, some conclusions are offered. Our sample covers most of the critically important old world producers, with the exclusion of Italy, and all of the important new world producers. The broad diversity in regulatory, legislative, policy and economic systems ensured by the scope of the sample is necessary to measure the effects these variables have on cluster performance.

Typical products, mainly local food and wine, are considered suitable features to characterise the tourist supply of a destination and in many cases they are a major attraction of a territory. These products contain a strong reference to the territory in which they are produced. They simultaneously represent on the market a geographic area, its traditions and its cultural heritage, they identify a local community and its identity as well. Therefore typical products can be defined as ‘territorial intensive products’ (TIPs). Wine tourism represents the most innovative phenomenon of the more general tourism supply created around a TIP and certainly the most evident. The paper considers the importance of quality wine in Italy in helping to create the tourist supply of different territories through the creation of the Wine and Food Routes (WFRs) that represent a particular kind of tourist thematic itineraries. The paper confirms that quality wines are the ‘driver’ of WFRs creating a model of socioeconomic district.

The promises of the Internet as a platform for reaching new outlets, markets of global dimensions, intimate customer relationships, low cost and streamlined distribution chains have largely been disappointing in the wine industry. This paper draws on an e-mail commercial survey to investigate web customer service offered by 300 wine companies across Italy. The overall feedback rate was 55%. The main problem of these firms was the inability to respond to customer inquiries in a timely and informative fashion. In particular, only 18% of these wineries responded within four hours, 37% responded within 12 hours. There are also significant differences in response rates by regional business location.

In this paper, we present the evolutionary path occurred in the Chilean Wine industry generated by learning-by-imitation processes occurred after foreign direct investments improved few existing firms as well as created new firms. This process of learning-by-imitation was fostered by the development of knowledge networks and the arrival of highly qualified entrepreneurs.

The determination of the absolute value of a good is a primary need of each individual, and is historically at the basis of economic theory.
David Ricardo, in the Essay on the Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock of 1815 (Ricardo, 1951b, p.9), writes, “Wherever competition can have its full effect, and the production of commodity be not limited by nature, as is the case with some wines, the difficulty or facility of their production will ultimately regulate their exchangeable value”. “The ‘difficulty’ or ‘facility’ of production is judged on the basis of the amount of labour required,” summarizes Fernando Vianello on page XVI of his Italian Introduction to Ricardo’s On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1976). “If commodities are exchanged in proportion to the labour embodied, a commodity always produced by the same quantity of labour meets the requirements of a perfect measure of value” (Vianello, 1976, p. XVIII). Therefore in Ricardo, “The ‘absolute value’ of a commodity always produced by the same quantity of labour is invariable – even though its ‘exchange value’ or ‘relative value’ may change – in the sense that the commodity itself is not subject to that sole cause of variation of the value that acts on other commodities: the variation in the quantity of labour required for their production.” (Vianello, 1976, p. XVIII).
Ricardo’s labour theory of value made it possible – both in the early 19th century and today – to give clear solutions to the role of money (Vianello, 1976, p. XVIII) and rent (Vianello, 1976, p. XXII).
In Italy the lesson of classical economists, combined with the lesson of Schumpeter, was reworked by Sylos Labini both to provide an innovative answer to the theoretical problems of economic analysis (Sylos Labini, 1956) and to offer a direct study tool for the country’s industrial transformations from the 1960s up to today (Sylos Labini, 1972).