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ABSTRACT
In the light of the significant role that wine plays in the processes of agro-food consumption and given Italian wine market segmentation is still a topic partially explored, this paper provides an empirical analysis of current wine market trend in Italy. The study - that aims at identifying the wine consumers behaviour by evaluating the attitudes of Italian wine consumers through a multivariate statistical analysis - was carried out on sample of 953 consumers by adopting a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) whose results were taken into account to apply a cluster analysis in order to identify and describe the current profile of Italian wine consumers and categorize them into homogeneous groups. Results and highlight the presence of several market segments due to the coexistence of different attitudes and behaviours, showing interesting implication for producers and wine managers. Findings allowed to identify three different clusters of consumers which were so identified: occasional consumers, basic consumers, high quality demanding purchasers.
KEYWORDS
wine consumption, cluster analysis, market segmentation, consumer behaviour, Italian wine drinkers
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INTRODUCTION
In the last decade domestic demand for wine in Italy has experienced a very notable renewal due to the deep modifications in consumption model, leading to a concept redefinition of same consumption pattern linked to food and life-style habits.
A daily wine drinking has progressively lost importance to the advantage of occasional consumption that has been directed towards high quality and certified wines (Szolnoki et al., 2010; Spielmann and Babin, 2011). Decrease of wine consumption per capita and the spread of bottled quality wines have actively contributed to address the domestic demand towards wines with high sensory, hedonistic and health characteristics (Veale and Quester 2008; Almenberg and Dreber, 2011; Berghoef and Dodds, 2011; Caracciolo et al., 2013).
Furthermore the growing success of soft drinks and other alcoholic beverages (beer, cocktails, etc.) as alternative substitute of wine in the Italian food habits, helps to redirect the market share of "drinks" contributing, as a whole, to the reduction in the wine consumption.
This modification has become more relevant from 2008, when in a context of economic crisis - partly due to the reducing of Italian average incomes and the rising unemployment as well to the general increase of prices...