Abstract

Wine is a product characterized by the existence of both significant differences in quality and asymmetric information between producers and consumers. In this context there is a natural incentive for wineries to market poor quality wines. However, evidence shows that wine markets are populated by high quality wines, as well as lower quality products. In fact, in wine markets there have emerged responses at three different levels: institutional, collective (provided by a coalition of agents), and individual (provided by single agents). In this paper, we study (a combination of four) quality ratings as dependent variables, regressing them on a large number of explanatory variables. Collected data allow us to test the effect on different measures of quality of a series of wine- and winery-dependent factors. In particular, we test the effect of the following elements: classification, appellation (collective reputation), individual reputation, agronomical and oenological improvements, ownership structure, owner preferences.