The grapes in Italian wines: assessing their value

Abstract

The goal of this work is to assess the impact of grape varieties on the prices of Italian wines. As an important share of this wine is exported worldwide, we look at international markets. We gauge this influence by estimating a hedonic price model based on a sample of 2315 Italian still wines reviewed in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. The work expands results offered in literature so far as it considers quite a large number of international national and autochthonous varieties used for producing both red and white wines. Moreover, we propose an original perspective by exploring the different impacts of ageing on wine prices according to the different grape varieties utilized. Results show that, besides the well-known Italian geographical divide, many grape varieties significantly associate with different price levels. Overall, this impact is larger in the case of red wines than for the white ones. Furthermore, for the formers there are few well known varieties associated with positive price premiums, while for white wines, less widespread autochthonous varieties gain higher prices. Last, we found that successful ageing process involve both native varieties of northern and southern Italy as well as international ones.