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When discussing glass bottles within the context of circular economy, reusability and recyclability are highlighted. However, it is recognised the relevant environmental footprint of glass production due to energy consumption and the impact of transportation of the empty bottles from the production site to the filling plants. Reducing the weight of the bottles has become possible through design and production technologies advances. However, consumer perceptions and technical requirements must be integrated and may conflict. This work aims at contributing to better understanding the relationship between the wine glass bottle weight, consumer perception of wine quality and acceptance of lighter bottles and recognition of sustainability factors related to packaging. Bordeaux shaped bottles are the lightest in the wine market, when compared to Burgundy or Conical, but also the ones with a wider weight range. Bordeaux bottles with 100 g of weight difference could be found for 750-cL capacity. Design features, punt and finish/neck dimensions were found to limit the reduction in bottle weight. Consumer survey results indicate a correlation between the bottle weight and the wine price. Portuguese consumers tend to associate a heavier bottle with better quality and higher price, particularly those consumers with higher wine expertise. The three top concerns regarding packaging are, by order, being plastic-free, recyclable and reusable. There is very low awareness on the importance of lightweighting glass bottles as a measure to improve sustainability. More than 80% of the respondents indicated the increase of recycled content as the measure contributing the most to sustainability.

In this study, the influence of vibration, bottle position, and initial headspace volume on the oxygen distribution inside a wine bottle were investigated. For this purpose, a model wine was filled in 0.75 L wine bottles and stored horizontally and vertically under different vibration intensities (500 mm/s2 and 1000 mm/s2) at a constant frequency of 50 Hz. The bottles were sealed with screw cap and cork closure and two different headspace volumes for each closure type. Our results indicated, that vibration and horizontal bottle position promoted the dissolution of oxygen from the headspace of the bottle into the wine causing accelerated sulfur dioxide degradation. The effect of vibration was larger in horizontally stored bottles indicating that a larger surface promotes oxygen uptake into the wine. In absence of headspace oxygen, vibration and bottle position showed no influence on sulfur dioxide-related oxygen degradation. Furthermore, it was shown that the dissolution of oxygen was faster under cork closure than under screw cap due to the overpressure by corking process. It was concluded that vibration and horizontal bottle position have a major impact on the dissolution of headspace oxygen from the headspace of the bottle into the wine but not on the chemical reaction of the dissolved oxygen with sulfur dioxide. The larger surface between the headspace and wine in horizontally stored bottles and the overpressure created by corking process accelerates the oxygen uptake from the bottles headspace into the wine.

Oxygen permeability data is relevant for selecting wine bottles closures. Market available stoppers, two natural and eight microagglomerated corks, were analysed for the oxygen ingress over time in stoppered bottles, under different temperatures (8, 23, and 40 °C), with and without contact between cork and wine simulant. Weibull model described well the oxygen ingress. Differences were found between cork types in long-term oxygen pressure (Po) and ingress rates (τ). For microagglomerated corks, Po increased, and τ decreased with temperature, following the Arrhenius behaviour, with estimated activation energies of 15.3 and 35.2 kJ mol−1, respectively. Microagglomerated corks exhibited slower initial oxygen ingress but higher long-term oxygen ingress than natural corks. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that factors related to the bottleneck-cork interface contributed more to the variance of the system than cork type. Liquid contact reduces oxygen ingress around five times. The temperature impact in the oxygen ingress was lower for natural corks.

PurposeNew York is the third top wine producing state in America. Competitive wine production across the United States has challenged New York winemakers to secure a place in the domestic market in order to support the long-term viability of the local economy. As businesses of agriculture become increasingly disrupted by the changing natural environment and consumer demand for sustainable products grows, vintners may distinguish themselves through the production and promotion of strategic initiatives on wine bottle labels.Design/methodology/approachFueled by the distinct fields of green marketing and environmental communication, this research investigates the promotion of sustainable practices on wine bottle labels. Through the methodology of content analysis, this project examines all 13 wineries on the Shawangunk Wine Trail located in the Hudson River Region of New York.FindingsThe findings from this study show that less than half of wineries in the sample selection employ environmental marketing as a communication strategy.Research limitations/implicationsThis research carries practical, business and social implications for the local Hudson River Region, the larger New York wine industry, and any organization looking to remain viable in a competitive marketplace.Originality/valueThis paper reveals the potential for the Hudson River Region wine industry to promote its “distinctive” and “innovative” environmental philosophy of “terroir driven and sustainably produced” winemaking on wine bottle labels to differentiate themselves in a crowded and expanding marketplace and build a Basis of Legitimacy with consumers.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to find out how unconscious perception and conscious reactions differ when it comes to evaluate wine bottles in a shopping shelf. It was evaluated how attention is related to subjective evaluations of interest and value in the perception of wine bottle design choices. Design/methodology/approach The experiment combined implicit eye-tracking observations and a quantitative measurement on the assessment on wine bottle designs. In total, 37 participants rated eight different wine bottle designs based on their interest and assumed value, without any given information about the wines’ original price classification. Findings There is a significant difference between the perception of wine bottle designs. Eye-catchy designs do not automatically transform into a higher perception of value and interest towards the product. The unconscious perception of bottles and the conscious reaction differentiate. Research limitations/implications The greatest limitation, as with many other implicit studies, is the limited number of subjects and the associated limited validity. In addition, eight bottles in four categories were studied, which is adequate, but does not fully reflect the complexity of the wine market supply. Practical implications Manufacturers and wine label designers should challenge existing pre-disposition towards certain wine bottle design choices. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first German consumer study that focusses on unconscious perception (measured by implicit eye movement behaviour) and conscious reactions in the context of explicit value and interest evaluation.

PurposeThe aim of this study is to analyse the importance of bottle design in relation to other purchasing criteria, and also to understand which design elements are most attractive to consumers.Design/methodology/approachA survey of a sample of 437 wine drinkers was carried out in Portugal using non-probabilistic sampling. The technique used was conjoint analysis based on the SPSS conjoint module.FindingsOne of the key findings was the low importance of bottle design in shaping consumer preferences compared to other attributes (origin, price and category of wine). In terms of design elements, the label had the biggest influence on consumer choice, followed by the type of bottle, bottle seal and brand name, in that order. Differences in consumer choice were evident according to the level of knowledge of wine and frequency of consumption.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide guidance for Portuguese wineries as regards the marketing and design decisions of their products and packaging.Originality/valueThis study sheds new light on the importance of wine bottle design on consumer preferences. Previous studies in the area have proved to be minimal and heterogeneous.

© 2020 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction Aim: To assess the impact of purchasing wine in 50 cl bottles compared with 75 cl bottles on the amount of wine consumed at home. Design: Cross-over randomized controlled trial with a ‘usual behaviour’ period of a maximum of 3 weeks between conditions. Setting: Households in the United Kingdom. Participants: One hundred and eighty-six households that consumed between two and eight 75 cl bottles of wine each week. Intervention: Households were randomized to the order in which they purchased wine in two bottle sizes. During two 14-day intervention periods, households purchased a pre-set volume of wine—based on their baseline self-reported weekly consumption—in either 75 cl bottles or 50 cl bottles. On days 7 and 14 of each study period, participating households sent photographs of each purchased wine bottle. Measurements: The primary outcome was the volume of study wine in millilitres (ml) consumed during each study period estimated through returned photographs. The secondary outcome was the rate of consumption measured by the mean number of days taken to drink 1.5 litres from each bottle size. Findings: One hundred and sixty-six of 186 enrolled households satisfactorily completed the study. After accounting for pre-specified covariates, 191.1 ml [95% confidence interval (CI) = 42.03–339.2] or 4.5% (95% CI = 1.0–7.9%) more wine was consumed per 14-day period from 75-cl bottles than from 50-cl bottles. Consumption was 5.8% faster (95% CI = –10.9 to –0.4%) from 75 cl bottles than from 50 cl bottles. Conclusions: Consuming wine at home from 50 cl bottles, compared with 75 cl bottles, may reduce both amount consumed and rate of consumption.

PurposeThis paper investigates how giving additional information to consumers changes their appreciation of wine, and how this effect changes with their knowledge of wine and their characteristics.Design/methodology/approachA survey of 415 French consumers was carried-out in 2014, focusing on the sensory evaluation of 37 red Bourgogne wines. Two sensorial evaluations (visual, and smell & taste) are investigated, first without any information about the wine and then with the presentation of the wine bottle with its labels.FindingsThe majority of participants are significantly influenced by the information displayed. The influence of information depends on their initial knowledge and individual characteristics (gender, age, and home area). This influence is robust, whatever be the means of evaluation.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was carried out with red Bourgogne wines and focused on the village and regional appellations, with a low and medium price range. The results need a broader investigation to be generalizable.Practical implicationsInformation does not have the same influence depending on individual characteristics and on knowledge of wine. Promoting different wines to different consumers who do not have the same knowledge and do not use the same distribution channels is challenging as consumers do not all have the same expectations of red Bourgogne wines. The results provide directions for better targeting consumers through the information on the bottle labels.Originality/valueBy cross-tabulating sensory tastings and knowledge tests, this research contributes to measuring the holistic effect of information on the hedonic appreciation of wine across a significant range of consumers issued from two big cities.

This study addresses the price heterogeneity of the five first growths of Bordeaux. We apply the quantile regression (QR) approach with market segmentation based on wine bottle price quantiles. We compute the hedonic price of wine attributes for various price segments in the market. This approach is applied to a major dataset comprising approximately 50,000 transactions over the 2003–2017 period. The findings indicate that the relative hedonic prices of several wine attributes differ significantly among deciles. The implications of our results are manifold. Vintage and Parker grades have a strong impact on the variation in wine prices, and there is a hierarchy among the five first growths of Bordeaux. There is also a premium commanded by the reputation and experience of an auction house. Since the financial crisis of 2012–2013, investors have considered that the five first growths are overrated, save for the most expensive wines; for those most expensive ones, investors prefer scarcity to liquidity. These results are of import to several actors in the fine wine market: investors, for example, could use the findings herein to better diversify their wine portfolio, while auction houses could better anticipate their future sales based on consumers’ expectation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existence and influence of gender effects on wine choice, specifically whether women and men seek the same cues in wine labelling. Design/methodology/approach Five focus groups, involving 45 regular wine consumers (22 women and 23 men) from four Portuguese wine regions of origin, were conducted. Sessions included two projective techniques. To gather more information, participants were asked to fill a short questionnaire, relating purchasing and consumption habits, knowledge and socioeconomic characteristics. Qualitative data were transcribed verbatim and content analysis was used. Findings Women frequently associate wine to the context of consumption; while men frequently associate wine to convivial and sensorial pleasure. Region of origin and prior knowledge experience seem to be the two main reasons for men to choose a wine; while, women seem to rely more on wine brand and previous experience. Front label information (region of origin, awards and region illustration) seems to be more important for women, while the back label descriptors (grape variety, world heritage site and wine history) are more relevant for men. The typography (font size) and information type were identified as negative aspects of the back label. Practical implications Understanding how men and women looking for information on a wine bottle can help marketers communicate with specific market segments. This paper provides insights to design marketing campaigns regarding product customization at the level of label information and design. Originality/value The present research contributes to current literature on wine consumer behaviour, exploring behavioural differences, perceptions and motivations by gender. In particular, the relevance of wine cues for choice decision is explored. The evidence of focus groups combined with projective techniques is complemented with data collected through a questionnaire.

Background The physical properties of tableware could influence selection and consumption of food and alcohol. There is considerable uncertainty, however, around the potential effects of different sizes and shapes of tableware on how much food and alcohol people self-serve. These studies aimed to estimate the impact of: 1. Plate size and shape on amount of food self-served; 2.Wine glass and bottle size on amount of wine self-poured. Methods 140 adults participated in two laboratory studies—each using randomised within-subjects factorial designs—where they self-served food (Study 1) and wine (Study 2): Study 1: 3 plate sizes (small; medium; large) × 2 plate shapes (circular; square). Study 2: 3 wine glass sizes (small; medium; large) × 2 wine bottle sizes (75 cl; 50 cl). Results Study 1: There was a main effect of plate size: less was self-served on small (76 g less, p p p = 0.46) or a size and shape interaction (p = 0.47). Study 2: There was a main effect of glass size: less was self-served in small (34 ml less, p p p = 0.20) or a glass and bottle size interaction (p = 0.18). Conclusions Smaller tableware (i.e. plates and wine glasses) decreases the amount of food and wine self-served in an initial serving. Future studies are required to generate estimates on selection and consumption in real world settings when numerous servings are possible. Protocol registration information: OSF (https://osf.io/dj3c6/) and ISRCTN (10.1186/ISRCTN66774780).

For many purchases, consumers often possess only limited information about product quality. Thus, observable product characteristics are used to determine expected quality levels when making purchase decisions. We use more than 1 million weekly scanner-level observations from grocery stores across ten U.S. markets between September 2009 and August 2012 to examine how consumers value a wine bottle's closure type (i.e., cork or screw cap). We focus on lower-priced wines—those with sale prices less than $30 per 750 milliliter bottle—to more accurately evaluate decisions of consumers for whom seeking additional information about wine quality is likely more costly than the benefits derived from that information. Using both pooled ordinary least squares and quantile regressions to estimate price premiums for bottles with corks or screw caps, we find that U.S. consumers are willing to pay, on average, approximately 8% more (about $1.00) for a bottle of wine that has a cork closure. In addition, we show that the size of this premium increases as wine prices decline. (JEL Classifications: D81, M31, Q11)

In recent years, the Portuguese market has seen the launch of many new wine brands with novel designs that differ from the traditional products. However, there is not enough information about how the design of the wine bottle influences the brand selection process, nor about which segment of consumers most values this design as a purchasing criterion. In order to enhance the knowledge on this subject, a survey has been conducted on a sample of 437 wine buyers. The results show that taste, aroma and price are the most important criteria, while aspects related to design are less valued. Even so, three different segments of consumers can be identified, with the segment seeking value for money placing the most importance on the design of the wine bottle.

Natural stoppers are a magnificent closure for the production of aging wines and unique wines, whose application is limited by the availability of raw materials and more specifically of cork sheets of different thickness and quality. The growing demand for quality wine bottle closures leads to the search for alternative stopper production. The two-piece stopper is an alternative since it uses non-usable plates in a conventional way for the production of quality caps. The present study has analyzed the impact of the manufacture of these two-piece stoppers using different methodologies and for different dimensions by developing an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), concluding that the process phases of the plate, its boiling, and its stabilization, are the phases with the greatest impact. Likewise, it is detected that the impacts in all phases are relatively similar (for one kg of net cork produced), although the volumetric difference between these stoppers represents a significant difference in impacts for each unit produced.

Wine is a high-value alcoholic beverage welcomed by consumers because of its flavor and nutritional value. The key information on wine bottle label is the basis of consumers' choice, which also becomes a target for manufacturers to adulterate, including geographical origin, grape variety and vintage. With the improvement of wine adulteration technology, modern technological means are needed to solve the above mentioned problems. The chemical basis of wine determines the type of technique used. Detection technology can be subdivided into four groups: mass spectrometry techniques, spectroscopic techniques, chromatography techniques, and other techniques. Multivariate statistical analysis of the data was performed by means of chemometrics methods. This paper outlines a series of procedures for wine classification and identification, and classified the analytical techniques and data processing methods used in recent years with listing their principles, advantages and disadvantages to help wine researchers choose appropriate methods to meet the challenge and ensure wine traceability and authenticity.

This paper describes a novel solution for counterfeit prevention and brand protection in the wine industry. The presented approach combines Internet of Things, Cloud, and Mobile technologies with the use of custom designed smart tags applied to each bottle of wine in order to provide food track and trace capabilities. The smart tags combine QR code with additional information printed with an invisible photochromatic ink. The tags are activated by flashlight on mobile devices during the scanning. Before scanning, users are prompted to select the context of the wine bottle (in store, sold, consumed) in order to provide additional information about each bottle as it moves through the supply chain. This information is used by the custom-made heuristic to help users and wine makers detect issues with individual instances of the product. The system was implemented as a pilot project that was executed during a period of 6 months. End users showed a great interest in the possibility to implement such a system, consumers liked the interaction with the product using the mobile app and smart tags, while wine makers expressed their interest in the solution. Besides counterfeit that affects profit, the benefits of such systems include improved brand protection and reduced risk of health hazards.

This paper describes an effort to utilize IoT, OCR, and blockchain technology to create wine track and trace system evaluated in a real-life environment. The research is focused on digital transformation in traditional wine supply chain, using computer vision to read the existing serial numbers labeled on bottles, so as to uniquely identifying individual bottles of wine and track the item life-cycle. The system provides mobile app to allow end consumers to scan each wine bottle and learn more about that particular product instance, its origin, authenticity, rating and potentially other characteristics. Status of each bottle is updated every time it has been scanned. To ensure the transparency of the recorded data and information immutability, the blockchain technology is used to record all relevant information into the ledger, e.g. all status updates for each item. The developed service enables tracking of a bottle throughout the supply chain, from a producer to a consumer, where traceability story is still not finalized. The consumed serial numbers are kept in the ledger, to avoid counterfeit scenario when one “bottle” (i.e. one serial number) is being sold multiple times. The life-cycle of bottle and its status changes are recorded, and the authenticity ensured facilitating verifiable identity of the authorized handlers and cutting edge cryptography, thus providing additional trust in the solution and transparency to all stakeholders.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the suitability of bioplastic bottles for wine packaging. The wine is largely packaged in glass bottles, although alternative solutions such as laminate, plastic and bag-in-box packaging are decidedly widespread on the market by virtue of their ease of use and low cost, especially for the so-called entry-level products. However, packaging involving the partial or exclusive use of plastic is the subject of discussion in the scientific community, by virtue of the persistence of plastic materials in the environment at the end of the product life cycle. A solution that could reconcile the practicality and low cost of plastic packaging with a reduced environmental footprint is the replacement of fossil-based plastics with compostable bioplastics. The latter biodegrade if properly treated at the end of their life, limiting the environmental footprint of the packaging. Bioplastics are, however, more complex to process than conventional plastics, also presenting a higher cost. The objective of this study is therefore the manufacture of prototype bottles in bioplastic for the packaging of wine by means of an extrusion blow molding process, as well as the evaluation of the main thermo-mechanical and physical properties of the same.

Detecting defects on the wine bottle surface is a challenging task due to these factors: (1) tiny defects on the surface, (2) visually similar defects with design patterns on bottles, (3) reflective (metallic) bottle surface, (4) real-time requirement. In this paper, we propose an efficient and light-weight detector for the defects. To this end, we adopt EfficientNet- B3 [1] as the backbone of the detector and YOLO [2] as the detection head. In addition, we use channel pruning approach [3] to obtain a more compact model. In the experiments, we obtain a score of 0.77 on the validation dataset, similar performance comparing to the two-stage methods[23]. The parameters of our detector are only 5. $8\mathrm{M}$ , which are about one tenth of the YOLO's [2]. The proposed detector achieves a good balance between speed and accuracy.

Speeding up grape must fermentation would be of great economic benefit. We subjected Saccharomyces cerevisiae VIN13 and two recombinant VIN13-strains expressing ATF1 alleles under two different promoters (either PGK1 or HXT7) to four styles of grape must fermentations, we then assessed the effect of constantly stirring a must fermentation (isomixing). The four different fermentation setups were as follows: isomixed, closed in an ANKOM Rf Gas productions system, isomixed, open in a stirred tall tube cylinder, static, closed constituting a conventional fermentation in a wine bottle equipped with an airlock and static, and static, open in a tall tube cylinder (without stirring). We report on major fermentation parameters and the volatile aroma compositions generated in the finished wines. The primary fermentations of the strains subjected to constant stirring finished after 7 days, whereas the static fermentations reached dryness after 19 days. The wines derived from isomixed fermentations produced approximately 0.7% less ethanol compared to the unstirred fermentations. The speed that the isomixed fermentation took to reach completion may provide an alternative to static fermentations in the preparation of base wines for sparkling wine production. The observed increase of volatiles of isomixed fermentations merits further investigation.

International audience; Alcoholic beverages, especially great wines and spirits, are prime targets for counterfeiters. The simplest form of wine fraud involves fixing counterfeit labels of expensive wines to bottles of less expensive wine. However, time-consuming analytical techniques requiring liquid sampling are mainly used for authentication purposes, which irremediably degrade the value of the bottle. This work aims to develop a new diagnostic tool based on the direct analysis of label matrix and ink in order to obtain valuable information that would enable a preliminary non-destructive authentication. Raman and infrared spectroscopies have been applied for fast, reproducible and discernible molecular characterization since both analytical techniques are strictly non-invasive and do not require sample preparation. They were successfully applied to a selected number of genuine and counterfeited bottles (Pauillac, France) and a series of bottles which goes from 1969 to 2010 belonging to the same producer (Pomerol, France). Raman spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy showed a great complementarity to clarify the molecular composition of label and inks. As a general overview, pigments are not useful for discrimination purpose in the pairs of original and counterfeited samples. However, several mismatch in label composition were identified, allowing the differentiation among samples. With respect to the second batch of bottles, Raman spectroscopy was able to trace the materials used in labels and inks, giving evidences about the chronologic order of manufacture. Despite the limited number of samples, mainly due to their uniqueness, the classification power of the proposed methodology has been clearly proven.

Climate change induces in the Mediterranean region more frequent and extreme events, namely, heat waves and droughts, disturbing forest species and affecting their productivity and product quality. The cork oak (Quercus suber) is present along the western Mediterranean basin and its outer bark (cork) is sustainably collected and used for several products, mainly wine bottle stoppers. Since most cork properties arise from its chemical composition, this research studies the effect of drought on cork chemical composition (suberin, lignin, polysaccharides and extractives) and on polysaccharide and suberin monomeric composition. Three sets of cork samples, from the same site, were examined: in one set the cork grew without drought; in another two drought events occurred during cork growth and in the third one drought event happened. The results show that, in general, drought does not affect the proportion of the main components of cork, the monomers of suberin or of polysaccharides, with few exceptions e.g. drought increased ethanol extractives and xylose in polysaccharides and decreased arabinose in polysaccharides. The variability associated to the tree is much more relevant than the effect of drought conditions and affects all the parameters analyzed. Therefore, our research suggests that the tree genetic information, or its expression, plays a much more important role on the chemical composition of cork than the drought conditions occurring during cork growth. In practical terms, the potential increased occurrence of droughts arising from climatic changes will not compromise the performance of cork as a sealant for wine bottles.

One of the most interesting enabling technologies for digital transformation is computer vision. Object and character recognition has already become very popular and it is used in everyday life. This research focuses on the use of computer vision to read serial numbers from wine labels in order to enable applications based on tracking and tracing of each individual wine bottle. After experimenting with several OCR tools, an open source software called Tesseract OCR engine was selected for the pilot solution. The paper discusses the implementation and image processioning that improved detection accuracy. The coding was done in the Python programming language. The solution code was tested using real-life like images of wine serial numbers. In addition, a custom built web-based evaluation tool was created and used for the interactive evaluation of the system.

In the Mediterranean region, water scarcity has already prompted concern in the wine sector due to the strong impact it has on vineyard productivity and wine quality. Water footprint is an indicator that takes account of all the water involved in the creation of a product and may help producers to identify hotspots, and reduce water consumption and the corresponding production costs. In recent years several studies have been reported on wine water footprint determination, but mostly focused on the viticulture phase or assuming no grey water footprint at the winery since it has a treatment system. In the framework of the WineWaterFootprint project a medium-size winery was monitored, with direct measurements, regarding determination of the blue and grey components of water footprint. The determined winery water footprint ranged from 9.6 to 12.7 L of water per wine bottle of 0.75 L, the wastewater produced being responsible for about 98%, which means that the grey component cannot be disregarded. The developed scenarios show that a potential reduction of 87% in winery water footprint can be obtained with almost no investment. The challenge of reducing the grey footprint is not in technology development, but rather in the proper maintenance and monitoring of treatment systems. The authors would like to acknowledge the WineWaterFootprint project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-023360, Universidade de Lisboa and Instituto Superior de Agronomia of Universidade de Lisboa. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Wine is one of the few food products not subject to mandatory nutritional labelling, except for alcohol content. As such, health-related characteristics might be inferred by attributes related to production methods and alcohol content. This research focuses on the set of information currently reported on wine bottle labels, investigates the consumer&rsquo, s use of such labels, and their preferences for information associated with &rsquo, naturalness&rsquo, such as clean labels and alcohol content. We conducted a survey on Italian consumers of red wine, which included a choice experiment. Results showed that health consciousness is an important driver in the use of wine labels. Estimates from a latent class model suggest that health consciousness, along with age, plays a significant role in defining consumer preference segments: the majority of our sample tended to prefer red wine characterized by &lsquo, clean labels&rsquo, but younger and more health-conscious consumers showed a significant disutility for higher alcohol content. More traditional consumers revealed disutility for more unconventional &lsquo, which were instead appreciated by a third group of consumers, called here &lsquo, new clean trend lovers&rsquo, Preference for nutritional information such as lower alcohol content and clean labels distinguished the more health-conscious consumers, who belonged to the most likely preference class. Together, the results may suggest that nutritional information currently not mandatory for wine would be appreciated by a significant share of wine consumers.

The aim of the paper is to quantitatively analyse a main source of uncertainty in LCA practice, i.e. the one due to the LCA practitioner. The same life cycle inventory dataset was used by six practitioners to independently compute six environmental impact categories with a cradle to grave approach, considering a red wine bottle produced by an Italian winery. To obtain the repeatability (r) and reproducibility (R) limits for each impact categories, LCA results were analyzed according to the ASTM E691-05 standard specifications. After a first stage of the study, in which relevant differences in the approach used and results were observed, all the practitioners considered the same system boundaries and processes, and, as a consequence, the results of all the impact categories became comparable. Nevertheless, the choice of different inventory datasets for describing the same process caused variations among the practitioners’ outcomes. This study highlighted how the uncertainties due to the practitioner choices may significantly affect LCA results, especially when lack of information affects the data collection. The practitioner-related uncertainty should be considered in the same way as other uncertainty sources, especially when the Life Cycle impacts of a product are compared to the ones published in other studies.

We examined the effects of an extrinsic attribute of wine—closure type (natural, screw, synthetic, or glass)—on perceptions of intrinsic attributes (appearance, taste, bouquet, and overall quality) by comparing two separate samples of tasters to determine whether differences exist. A convenience sample of students, parents, faculty, staff, and community members in a college town in the northwestern United States participated in the study. The findings confirmed the positive halo effect of natural corks when compared with screw caps and synthetic corks. More specifically, wine thought to have been poured from a bottle with a natural cork closure registered significantly higher ratings on appearance, bouquet, taste, and overall quality compared with wines closed with screw caps or synthetic cork closures, but not those with glass closures. Our findings suggest that glass stoppers could replace natural corks without generating significantly negative effects on perceptions of intrinsic wine attributes.