Vol. 14 No. 1 (2025)
Original Research Article

Sustainable wine – for whom? Consumer preferences for different environmental labels

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  • Tommaso Fantechi,
  • Caterina Contini,
  • Nicola Marinelli,
  • Marco Moriondo,
  • Sergi Costafreda-Aumedes
Tommaso Fantechi
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry – DAGRI – University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Caterina Contini
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry – DAGRI – University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Nicola Marinelli
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry – DAGRI – University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Marco Moriondo
National Research Council, Institute of BioEconomy (CNR-IBE), Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy
Sergi Costafreda-Aumedes
National Research Council, Institute of BioEconomy (CNR-IBE), Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/wep-17712

Published 2025-05-20

Keywords

  • Sustainable wine,
  • Consumer preferences,
  • Environmental label,
  • Discrete Choice Experiment

How to Cite

Fantechi, T., Contini, C., Marinelli, N., Moriondo, M., & Costafreda-Aumedes, S. (2025). Sustainable wine – for whom? Consumer preferences for different environmental labels. Wine Economics and Policy, 14(1), 17–29. https://doi.org/10.36253/wep-17712

Copyright (c) 2024 Tommaso Fantechi, Caterina Contini, Nicola Marinelli, Marco Moriondo, Sergi Costafreda-Aumedes

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

As sustainability concerns increasingly influence agri-food systems, environmental labels have become an important tool for signalling producers’ ecological responsibility to consumers. However, the effectiveness of such labels depends on how they are perceived and valued in specific product contexts. This study investigates consumer preferences for four environmental labels in the wine sector: organic certification, carbon neutral, reduced water footprint, and reduced pesticide use. A discrete choice experiment conducted with 300 Italian wine consumers, combined with latent class analysis, revealed four distinct segments with heterogeneous responses to environmental labels. While one group rejected environmental labels altogether, others displayed selective interest based on the perceived relevance of the label to specific concerns such as health or resource conservation. These findings highlight the need for tailored communication strategies that take into account both consumers’ cultural associations with wine – such as tradition, authenticity, and artisanal value – and their individual priorities, including differing levels of engagement with various aspects of environmental sustainability. In a category as culturally embedded as wine, where tradition, identity, and quality perceptions play a central role, tailored messaging becomes especially crucial to ensure that environmental-labels are understood, trusted, and valued.

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