Hard cider is a sector of a maturing craft beverage industry that continues to experience growth in the United States. Cider is also experiencing challenges, however, such as competition from other alcohol markets, changing consumer preferences, the supply chain, and inflationary pressures. National policy changes may help promote more optimal outcomes for this sector, but public support is important to policy formation. This study uses survey data from a best-worst scaling experiment of consumers in four leading cider-producing states (Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, and Vermont) to understand preferences toward ten broad cider policy initiatives. The results of multinomial logistic modeling reveal that consumers prefer policies mandating ingredients, nutrition facts, and allergen labeling across all ciders. The least preferred policy initiatives include allowing producers to use vintage on labeling and funding regional cider development. These results have important implications for stakeholders across the industry, including the benefits of labeling disclosures in marketing and the need to improve public awareness of barriers to cider industry development.

A proposal to reform the United Kingdom's excise duty on alcohol is under consideration during 2022. The proposal would change the tax base from volume of product to volume of alcohol, which would see a fall in the tax on sparkling wine (by about one-fifth), a rise in the tax on fortified wines of 18% alcohol by volume (ABV) (by about one-sixth), and table wines with more (less) than 11.5% ABV would become dearer (cheaper). With taxes on most beers unchanged and taxes on spirits lowered slightly, the pattern of UK wine consumption and imports would alter considerably. This article draws on a global model of national alcoholic beverage markets to estimate the likely bilateral trade effects of this proposed reform to UK excise duties. It compares them with the trade effects of the United Kingdom's first two bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), following the post-Brexit EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which allows Australian and New Zealand vignerons tariff-free access to the UK wine market. Those two FTAs are estimated to cause the United Kingdom to import far more wine than is lost by the proposed changes in UK excise duties.

We conducted an in-store experiment to test the hypothesis that Colorado wines may suffer from reputational stigma. The context relates to marketing challenges faced by novel wine regions entering the competitive retail environment, even in a local context, and the possibility of being stuck in a “bad reputation trap.” Adopting a 2×2 design where we varied region of production (Colorado vs. California) and grape variety (familiar vs. unfamiliar), we administered a between-subject information treatment that revealed the origin of production to only half of the participants. We measured taste perceptions using Likert scales, and we elicited valuation via a multiple price listing. Our results are consistent with the presence of stigma against wines produced in Colorado. In the discussion, we draw from the literature on stigmatized markets to suggest plausible strategies to remove or avoid stigma. (JEL Classifications: L1, L15, Q1, Q13)

A substantial oenological literature exists on opinions of experts and neophytes as they relate to opinions about the quality of wines (Ashenfelter and Quandt, 1998; Cicchetti, 2004; Lindley, 2006). These opinions can be contrasted with factual binary questions about wine: Is it oaked? Does it contain sulfites? Is it filtered? Is the grape varietal Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc? Syrah or Grenache? Pinot Noir or Gamay? Such factual binary issues are examined within the broader context of the various measures of factual judgment: Overall Accuracy (OA), Sensitivity (Se), Specificity (Sp), Predicted Positive Accuracy (PPA), and Predicted Negative Accuracy (PNA). The resulting biostatistical methodology derives from biobehavioral diagnostic research investigations. The purpose of this report is to apply this methodology to the discipline of oenology to compare wine judgments with wine facts. Using hypothetical examples, wine judges’ classifications of wines as oaked or unoaked were analyzed for their degree of accuracy. The results show that OA is a poor measure of the accuracy of binary judgments relative to Se, Sp, PPA, or PNA. The biostatistics of the problem could have wide-ranging applications in the design of future oenological research investigations, and in scientific research more broadly. (JEL Classifications: C1, L15, Q13)

We pose several Knapsack Problems (KPs) to select the optimal subset of wines subject to budget and quantity constraints. The first problem seeks the subset of wines, from a single cultivar (zinfandel) that maximizes the sum of ratings subject to a budget constraint. We modify this problem by adding an equality constraint on the number of bottles that must be chosen. The third problem seeks to maximize the sum of ratings from three different cultivars (cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, and zinfandel) subject to a budget constraint and then a budget and minimum bottle constraints for each cultivar. The rating maximization problem may have multiple solutions. We also pose two expenditure minimization problems, subject to achieving the maximum sum of ratings. We extend the model by defining an integer choice problem, that allows multiple purchases of the same wine, and by accounting for possible non-linearities between wine ratings and utilities. Applications of this model include procurement decisions for tastings, special events or building a personal wine cellar. (JEL Classification: C61 D12)

The outcome of the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris, a blind wine tasting of ten wines by nine French judges, brought American wines to the forefront of the wine business. A Californian wine, the 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon, was declared the winner, surpassing four highly prized French wines (Château Mouton-Rothschild 1970, Château Montrose 1970, Château Haut-Brion 1970, and Château Léoville Las Cases 1971). We collect ratings from experts for (almost) all vintages of the same ten wines over the years 1968–2021 and find that the Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon is far from being first. We conclude that either the 1973 vintage was overrated by the experts who tasted it in 1976, or 1973 was merely an outlier in this winery.

Consumer choice of differentiated products, such as wine, depends on the composition of the choice set consumers are choosing from. However, choice sets are often situationally defined through wine-tasting lists or displayed wines in a particular tasting and sales environment. In this paper, we use an experiment to explicitly modify the saliency of wine options available outside the tasting room choice set and the amount of sensory information available about the wines before wine tasting. We explicitly test whether consumer regret and fear of missing out on alternative options or consumer search costs are more likely to drive behavior around large choice sets. We find that increasing the saliency of outside options decreases one's propensity to taste the wines available for tasting and purchase immediately, while changing search costs through sensory descriptions does not affect tasting behavior. This provides support for the anticipated regret and fear of missing out motivations for behavior around large wine-tasting lists.

Although potentially useful for financially hedging systemic weather-related risks, weather contracts/derivatives (also referred to as parametric insurance) have not seen wide adoption in agriculture outside of applications in developing countries, frequently supported by governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). A significant impediment is the lack of financial firms willing to stand ready to sell weather derivatives to individual agricultural producers in the over-the-counter market who, due to the localized nature of weather, face idiosyncratic weather-related risks. In particular, the administrative and reinsurance costs of supplying relatively small contracts with specific terms to many different producers are often prohibitive. The current study considers the potential use of weather derivatives in hedging the aggregate yield/revenues of viticulture producers represented by an industry association located in the province of Ontario, Canada. We examine the sensitivity of aggregate industry yields to several relevant weather-related risks employing copula function analysis. We then consider the potential of a weather derivative in hedging the financial risk associated with cold winter temperatures, which pose the greatest risk to aggregate vinifera yields. The issue of attributing costs and payouts to individual association members remains unresolved, and several alternatives are suggested.

In this paper we analyse wine demand in Italy with microdata. Instead of estimating a parametric model, we study the demand following a non parametric approach by means of Artificial Neural Networks. The input set includes the usual economic variables (price and income) and some sociodemographic factors that are also shown to be relevant for demand analysis. We compute price elasticities using two different nonparametric procedures. (JEL Classification: C14, C21, Q11, Q13)

This article presents a micro-macro integrated model/framework for the disaggregated quantitative assessment of the impacts of various shocks generated in five socio-economic and climate-driven simulations on the wine-grape sector in Veneto, Italy. (JEL Classifications: C01, C67, Q12, Q54)