Do vintage scores by regions matters? The case of French wine regions

ABSTRACT

This article examines causal relationships among vintages scores in major French wine regions using cointegration procedures, Granger non-causality test, and the Error Correction Model. Vintage data are available from the French Guide Hachette over the period 1954–2015 and from a specialized wine website Idealwine.com for the period 1919–2015. Our approach provides new results on the causality links between different wine regions. The causal relationships among the vintage scores allow to assess the influential and influenced regions. The results are potentially important for various actors such as investors, merchants or consumers to better understand the quality effect in the different regional vintage scores.

KEYWORDS:

• Cointegration
• dynamics
• France
• vintage

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C60
• Q20

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Unit root tests and cointegration results are available from the authors.

² www.hachette-vins.com/presentation-du-guide-hachette-des-vins.html

Scores for other regions (Jura, Loire Valley, Languedoc Roussillon, and Rhone Valley) are also available but only since 1985.

³ www.idealwine.com/fr/saga_millesime/table_notation_fr.jsp.

⁴ Results are available from the authors.

⁵ Tests indicate Granger causality by row to column and Granger caused by column to row.