MARKETING NEEDS ANALYSIS FOR MICRO WINE PRODUCERS IN EUROPE

The European wine industry faces increasing challenges from newer wine-producing parts of the world. One of its problems is marketing, particularly for small wine producers making good quality wine but lacking training in ways of publicising it and therefore selling as much as they would like.

The core objective of the European project “Marketing European Wine: training for micro producers”, coordinated by the University of Glasgow under the European LEONARDO DA VINCI Programme (development and innovation), is to assist such producers by giving them training in marketing that is tailored to the needs expressed by a sample of micro wine producers in less well-known or emerging wine areas in Europe. Specifically, the study focuses on the wine-producing regions in seven European Union countries: Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.

To ascertain what marketing tools are most in demand from micro wine producers, the first step was to undertake a study of their marketing needs, comparing the resources available with the real priorities and difficulties faced by the wineries and wine-producing cooperatives.

Main findings demonstrate how Euroean micro-porducers are specially concerned in the quality of their wines. They also recognize, in the value chain analysis, that marketing and sales ( advertising, promotion, selling, pricing, channel management) is the activity where they need more help. Lack of resources (time, space, personnel) and lack of skills and knowledge seem to be the main reasons.