Internationalization, Premiumization and Diversity of the World's Winegrape Varieties

Kym Anderson and Signe Nelgen
Additional contact information
Signe Nelgen: Wine Economics Research Centre, School of Economics, University of Adelaide, Australia, and Hochschule Geisenheim University, Geisenheim, Germany

No 2021-03, Wine Economics Research Centre Working Papers from University of Adelaide, Wine Economics Research Centre

Abstract: This article reveals the extent to which national mixes of winegrape varieties (in terms of vineyard bearing area) have become more ‘internationalized’ and of arguably higher quality since wine globalization accelerated from the 1990s, and what that means for diversity of consumer choice. It does so using an updated global database involving 700+ wine regions that account for 99% of the world’s winegrape vineyard area and 1,700+ DNA-distinct prime winegrape varieties and 1350+ synonyms, for 2000, 2010 and 2016. It shows that vignerons’ winegrape varietal choices are narrowing in the various wine-producing countries of the world by converging on the major ‘international’ varieties, especially French ones. This is not inconsistent with the fact that wine consumers are enjoying an ever-wider choice range, thanks to far greater international trade in wine associated with the current wave of globalization. Nor is it inconsistent with strengthening vigneron interest in ‘alternative’ and native varieties. The data also suggest the quality of the current global mix of varieties has been rising well above the average quality of the most-planted varieties as of 1990 or 2000.

Keywords: Index of similarity between national and global varietal mixes; index of internationalization of prime varieties; quality of winegrape varieties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.adelaide.edu.au/economics/papers/winedoc/winewp2021-03.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adl:winewp:2021-03

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Wine Economics Research Centre Working Papers from University of Adelaide, Wine Economics Research Centre Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kym Anderson ().