A comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the economics of the production, distribution, and consumption of wine. Wine economics is a growing subfield that examines the economics of the production, distribution, and consumption of wine. In this book, Stefano Castriota takes a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the study of wine economics, drawing on literature from industrial organization, welfare economics, economic policy, political economy, management, finance, health economics, law, and criminology.
The U.S. wine industry is growing rapidly and wine consumption is an increasingly important part of American culture. American Wine Economics is intended for students of economics, wine professionals, and general readers who seek to gain a unified and systematic understanding of the economic organization of the wine trade. The wine industry possesses unique characteristics that make it interesting to study from an economic perspective. This volume delivers up-to-date information about complex attributes of wine; grape growing, wine production, and wine distribution activities; wine firms and consumers; grape and wine markets; and wine globalization. Thornton employs economic principles to explain how grape growers, wine producers, distributors, retailers, and consumers interact and influence the wine market. The volume includes a summary of findings and presents insights from the growing body of studies related to wine economics. Economic concepts, supplemented by numerous examples and anecdotes, are used to gain insight into wine firm behavior and the importance of contractual arrangements in the industry. Thornton also provides a detailed analysis of wine consumer behavior and what studies reveal about the factors that dictate wine-buying decisions.
In Postmodern Winemaking, Clark Smith shares the extensive knowledge he has accumulated in engaging, humorous, and erudite essays that convey a new vision of the winemaker's craft--one that credits the crucial roles played by both science and art in the winemaking process. Smith, a leading innovator in red wine production techniques, explains how traditional enological education has led many winemakers astray--enabling them to create competent, consistent wines while putting exceptional wines of structure and mystery beyond their grasp. Great wines, he claims, demand a personal and creative engagement with many elements of the process. His lively exploration of the facets of postmodern winemaking, together with profiles of some of its practitioners, is both entertaining and enlightening.
The book proposes an overview of the research conducted to date in the field of wine economics. All of these contributions have in common the use of econometric techniques and mathematical formalization to describe the new challenges of this economic sector.
In War, Wine, and Taxes, John Nye debunks the myth that Britain was a free-trade nation during and after the industrial revolution, by revealing how the British used tariffs—notably on French wine—as a mercantilist tool to politically weaken France and to respond to pressure from local brewers and others. The book reveals that Britain did not transform smoothly from a mercantilist state in the eighteenth century to a bastion of free trade in the late nineteenth. This boldly revisionist account gives the first satisfactory explanation of Britain's transformation from a minor power to the dominant nation in Europe. It also shows how Britain and France negotiated the critical trade treaty of 1860 that opened wide the European markets in the decades before World War I. Going back to the seventeenth century and examining the peculiar history of Anglo-French military and commercial rivalry, Nye helps us understand why the British drink beer not wine, why the Portuguese sold liquor almost exclusively to Britain, and how liberal, eighteenth-century Britain managed to raise taxes at an unprecedented rate—with government revenues growing five times faster than the gross national product. War, Wine, and Taxes stands in stark contrast to standard interpretations of the role tariffs played in the economic development of Britain and France, and sheds valuable new light on the joint role of commercial and fiscal policy in the rise of the modern state.
This Palgrave Handbook offers the first international comparative study into the efficiency of the industrial organization of the global wine industry. Looking at several important vineyards of the main wine countries, the contributors analyze differences in implementation and articulation of three key stages: grape production, wine making and distribution (marketing, selling and logistics). By examining regulations, organization theory, industry organizational efficiency and vertical integration, up to date strategies in the sector are presented and appraised. Which models are most efficient? What are the most relevant factors for optimal performance? How do reputation and governance impact the industry? Should different models co-exist within the wine countries for global success? This comprehensive volume is essential reading for students, researchers and professionals in the wine industry.
Today's wine industry is characterized by regional differences not only in the wines themselves but also in the business models by which these wines are produced, marketed, and distributed. In Old World countries such as France, Spain, and Italy, small family vineyards and cooperative wineries abound. In New World regions like the United States and Australia, the industry is dominated by a handful of very large producers. This is the first book to trace the economic and historical forces that gave rise to very distinctive regional approaches to creating wine. James Simpson shows how the wine industry was transformed in the decades leading up to the First World War. Population growth, rising wages, and the railways all contributed to soaring European consumption even as many vineyards were decimated by the vine disease phylloxera. At the same time, new technologies led to a major shift in production away from Europe's traditional winemaking regions. Small family producers in Europe developed institutions such as regional appellations and cooperatives to protect their commercial interests as large integrated companies built new markets in America and elsewhere. Simpson examines how Old and New World producers employed diverging strategies to adapt to the changing global wine industry. Creating Wine includes chapters on Europe's cheap commodity wine industry; the markets for sherry, port, claret, and champagne; and the new wine industries in California, Australia, and Argentina.
The world of wine encompasses endless variety. Consumers want to understand what makes one bottle of wine different from another; vintners need to know how to communicate what makes their product distinctive. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in Italy and France as well as interviews with critics and analysis of market data, Giacomo Negro, Michael T. Hannan, and Susan Olzak provide an unprecedented sociological account of the dynamics of wine markets. They demonstrate how the concepts of genre and collective identity illuminate producers’ choices, whether they are selling traditional or nonconventional wines. Winemakers face a fundamental choice: produce an existing style and develop an identity as a proponent of tradition or embrace foreign, new, or emerging categories and be seen as an innovator. To explain this dilemma, Negro, Hannan, and Olzak develop the notion of wine genres, or shared understandings among producers and the public. Genres emerge through the social structure of production, including factors such as group solidarity, social cohesion, and collective action, and become key reference points for critics and consumers. Wine Markets features case studies of the creation of a modern wine genre and a countermovement against modernism in Piedmont, the failure of producers of Brunello di Montalcino in Tuscany to define a clear collective identity, and the emergence of the biodynamic wine movement in Alsace. This book not only offers keen sociological insight into the wine world but also sheds new light on the logic of markets and organizations more broadly.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK “Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo élan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she’s not wrong, though Bill Buford’s Heat is probably a shade closer.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn’t know much about wine—until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and seemingly superhuman sensory powers, she set out to uncover what drove their obsession, and whether she, too, could become a “cork dork.” With boundless curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Bosker takes the reader inside underground tasting groups, exclusive New York City restaurants, California mass-market wine factories, and even a neuroscientist’s fMRI machine as she attempts to answer the most nagging question of all: what’s the big deal about wine? What she learns will change the way you drink wine—and, perhaps, the way you live—forever. “Think: Eat, Pray, Love meets Somm.” —theSkimm “As informative as it is, well, intoxicating.” —Fortune
Writing with wit and verve, Mike Veseth (a.k.a. the Wine Economist) tells the compelling story of the war between the market trends that are redrawing the world wine map and the terroirists who resist them. Wine and the wine business are at a critical crossroad today, transformed by three powerful forces. Veseth begins with the first force, globalization, which is shifting the center of the wine world as global wine markets provide enthusiasts with a rich but overwhelming array of choices. Two Buck Chuck, the second force, symbolizes the rise of branded products like the famous Charles Shaw wines sold in Trader Joe's stores. Branded corporate wines simplify the worldwide wine market and give buyers the confidence they need to make choices, but they also threaten to dumb down wine, sacrificing terroir to achieve marketable McWine reliability. Will globalization and Two Buck Chuck destroy the essence of wine? Perhaps, but not without a fight, Veseth argues. He counts on "the revenge of the terroirists" to save wine's soul. But it won't be easy as wine expands to exotic new markets such as China and the very idea of terroir is attacked by both critics and global climate change. Veseth has "grape expectations" that globalization, Two Buck Chuck, and the revenge of the terroirists will uncork a favorable future for wine in an engaging tour-de-force that will appeal to all lovers of wine, whether it be boxed, bagged, or bottled.
