CLUSTERING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOURS OF ITALIAN WINE CONSUMERS

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.