Young Consumers’ Preferences for Natural Wine: An Italian Exploratory Study

Abstract

Although much has been written about sustainable wine consumption, the topic of young consumers’ (age 18–39 years) preferences for natural wine in Italy has been poorly explored. Through an online survey of 640 Italian respondents, we investigate the characteristics that affect consumption of natural wine in Italy. First, a factor analysis was applied to reduce data to a smaller set of summary variables. A probit regression model was then used to explore the effects and evaluate the relative importance of identified factors on participants’ willingness to consume natural wine. The results reveal that being female, in the older age cohort (25–39 years), and being consumer of certified wine and/or biodynamic wine significantly increase the probability of drinking natural wine. The findings also showed that health benefits, natural product interest, previous experience with natural wine, and positive perception of natural wine also drive young consumers of natural wine.

Keywords:

• Consumer behavior
• natural wine
• online survey
• probit regression model
• sustainability
• young consumers

Ethics statement

Before starting the data collection, participants were informed about the objective of the research and the consequent statistical analysis. Participation in the study was fully voluntary and anonymous and subjects could withdraw from the survey at any time and for any reason. Respondents were required to sign a policy privacy and consent form for collecting and processing personal data in advance, according to the Italian Data Protection Law (Legislative Decree 101/2018) in line with European Commission General Data Protection Regulation (679/2016). The investigation was carried out following the rules of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 2018), revised in 2013. Ethical review and approval were waived for this study because it did not involve any invasive procedure (e.g., fecal samples, voided urine, etc.) or laboratory assessment or induced lifestyle changes.

Disclosure statement

None. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 See here: https://www.federdoc.com/en/