Is the quality of a 91-point wine significantly different from that of an 89-point wine? Which wines are underpriced relative to their evaluation of quality? This paper addresses these questions by constructing a novel wine rating system based on scores assigned by a panel of wine experts to a set of wines. Wines are classified in ranked disjoint quality equivalence classes using measures of statistically significant and commercially relevant score differences. The rating system is applied to the “Judgment of Paris” wine competition, to data of Bordeaux en-primeur expert scores and prices, and to expert scores and price categories of a large database of Italian wines. The proposed wine rating system provides an informative assessment of wine quality for producers and consumers and a flexible rating methodology for commercial applications.

While a large body of literature explores how international wine trade correlates with country, market and national industry characteristics, research at firm level on the choice to export (export propensity) and on the importance of exports on production or sales (export intensity) remains scarce. More importantly, a review of the literature reveals inconsistent results across the different studies regarding the variables correlated with export choices. No such analysis was conducted in Italy. Based on a survey of 180 wine firms in Piedmont (Italy), we estimate the variables correlated to export propensity and intensity. Our findings indicate that the most relevant factors include belonging to a wine producer cluster, wine quality and the firm’s legal status. Other variables are analyzed, confirming the divergent findings in the literature. We conclude that local and individual characteristics play an important role in these decisions.

Wine is the most differentiated of all farm products, with much of the differentiation based on the location of production. In this paper, we estimate the effects of climate and vintage weather on California's varietal wine quality and prices. Our analysis is based on a sample of premium wines rated by Wine Spectator magazine between 1994 and 2022 and a comparable sample of secondary market auction prices from K&L Wine Merchants, each matched to spatially detailed weather data from PRISM. We find that extreme temperatures, particularly extremely hot temperatures, caused prices to decline. Absent additional adaptation, climate change will harm wine quality and disrupt quality signals from geographical indications in California's premier wine regions.

This article documents the sudden creation of a significant entrepôt for French wine, particularly Bordeaux claret, in Boulogne-Sur-Mer starting in 1720. Scottish Jacobites who practiced a rebellious version of “fair trade” dominated this commerce, and their network had direct links to 18th-century economic thinkers such as Richard Cantillon, Charles de Montesquieu, and David Hume. The research uses social network analysis to analyze and visualize the concurrent networks, which by the 1750s included the French physiocrats. The research shows how politically inspired actions and strategies affected not only the wine entrepôt’s formation but also the circulation of ideas regarding “fair,” “free,” and balanced trade among Franco-British economic theorists. It also documents the formation of a dedicated claret commodity chain as well as the advent of wine product, packaging, and marketing specialization in the 18th century. These Jacobites formed wine trading firms that lasted long after the relevance of their political objectives had waned.

Using longitudinal data on teams and quality competition results, this study examines the impact of team and task familiarity on brewing excellence in the Japanese sake industry from 1956 to 2018. Sake production involves teamwork at every stage, but while some teams work together long term, others experience high turnover. The study highlights two factors: team familiarity, the collective experience of working together, and task familiarity, the individual experience of the task. High familiarity can strengthen team bonds and improve teamwork, but it can also limit the inflow of new knowledge and thus hinder innovation. This study uses data from national quality competitions and brewer lists, and considers the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 as an external shock to address endogeneity and estimate the causal relationship between familiarity and competition outcomes. The empirical results show that increases in both team and task familiarity are negatively associated with quality superiority.

The study examines the influence of markups on the export decisions and subsequent export intensity of firms within the Hungarian wine sector. Additionally, we evaluate the impact of entering and sustaining a presence in export markets on firms’ markups and compare the markup levels between exporting and non-exporting firms. We find that markups have a positive impact on both the probability of exporting and the export intensity, which aligns with previous findings. We demonstrate that exporting leads to an increase in markups. We find that exporters maintain higher markups even when accounting for productivity differences. Additionally, exporting can lead to higher markups because of the learning-by-exporting phenomenon. The results have significant implications. The findings imply that markups have a significant impact on the decision-making process and performance of Hungarian wine exports. Policymakers should facilitate to increase the markups of firms in order to enhance the export of wine and promote economic growth. Wine exporting firms should enhance their productivity and implement strategic pricing strategies to increase their markups and expand their exports.

This paper studies the effects of the U.S. railroad expansion during the 19th century on exports of wine at the customs district level. I digitize previously unexploited data on wine trade flows for customs districts from 1870 to 1900 and combine these data with GIS-based measures of access to wine-producing regions for each district. I find that improved access to wine producers, driven by the ongoing construction of more railways, led to districts exporting more wine. My results suggest that the rollout of the U.S. railroad network had important effects on the spatial distribution of the wine trade across ports.

Understanding consumer choices and their drivers of willingness to pay (WTP) for a bottle of wine has been a research challenge in wine economics, particularly in niche markets such as sparkling wine. This study investigates the determinants of WTP for sparkling wine based on data from Portuguese consumers. The results provided by two alternative methodologies are compared: a traditional econometric model, based on the estimation of an ordered probit model; and a modelling approach based on data-driven and using machine learning algorithms. Both approaches present similar results, highlighting the relevance of some determinants including income, Champagne brand, not being a protected designation of origin and being a red wine consumer as main predictors of WTP for sparkling wine in Portugal.