Abstract:

For the wine industry, the year 2020 brought reduced demand as a result of the intermittent closures or other imposed restrictions on the activities of bars, clubs, restaurants, and other event venues and further uncertainties as a result of changes in consumer spending habits. This forced winemakers and other industry stakeholders to think creatively in promoting their products.
Formal wine education mainly includes viticulture/enology university programs but also course programs provided by different national and international organizations such as The Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), Court of Master Sommeliers, Master of Wine or Italian Sommelier Association. Some of these courses and programs can be starting points for some very competitive certifications (e.g., Master Sommelier Diploma). During the restrictions on face-to-face events, non-formal and informal wine education can be realized through online workshops, home tastings events, or even by fostering online communities meant to help people better understand wines and cultivate their passion. If used correctly, nonformal education can be a content marketing vehicle, especially for up-market, higher profit margins wines that can reach consumer segments less sensitive to traditional marketing pitches. In 2018, 60 percent of respondents with a post-graduate degree indicated purchasing wine regularly (only 39 percent indicated purchasing liquors) compared to just 29 percent of those with high school or less and 39 percent of those with some college. (Source: TABS Analytics; Survey Sampling International). Such statistics suggest that well-educated higher-income people have affinities toward wine which could indicate a potential for these offshoots.
The aim of this study is (1) to identify and analyze the strategies employed by Romanian wine producers and distributors to attract attention to their premium and super-premium wines (especially through education-based marketing) at a time when onsite wine tasting or events are hard to organize and (2) to put forward ways to further improve and fine-tune these approaches to turn spending habits changes into opportunities. To accomplish this, case study research was employed and a Likert scale questionnaire was developed and administered to discover the impact of nonformal and informal learning on wine consumers' purchasing habits. The data analyses suggest an impact, especially in the case of online communities on wine purchases.

Keywords:

nonformal education, education-based marketing, wine, data analyses