Determinants of Wine-Bottling Strategic Decisions: Empirical Evidence from the Italian Wine Industry

Multiple factors contribute to creating and maintaining a competitive advantage in the current world wine market: firm size and, more generally, the financial capacity to undertake long-term quality investments (equipment, technologies, innovation, R&D etc.), the possibility to exploit scale and scope economies in production and sales activities, the strategic flexibility to adapt volumes and product range to changing market conditions, and product quality and quality differentiation (and signalisation) strategies either through individual or collective brands. In this setting, the recent European CMO (Common Market Organisation) wine reform aims at improving the competitiveness of the EU wine sector, encouraging structural adjustments, modernisation of vineyards, greater cost-effectiveness and market orientation of wine production (EC 2007). Moreover, a strong information and promotion policy aims at improving the image of EU wines and ‘exploiting the new opportunities provided by the emerging markets’.