Marketing strategies for organic wine growers in the veneto region

Recently, the Italian organic wine sector has dramatically increased. In the last two years, the organic vineyard area has doubled, reaching more than 40,000 hectares, while organic wineries account more than 9,000 farms. In particular, the Veneto Region accounts for 4% of total area and for 15% of organic wine makers. This study analyzes organic wine sector in the Veneto Region, mainly focusing on marketing issues, through a questionnaire survey. Two main organic wine enterprises have been recognized: small wine growers, specialized in producing organic grapes and large-size wineries, highly specialized in both cultivating grapes and processing wine. Almost all the production is certified and highly differentiated; most of the product is sold on foreign markets, while domestic consumption is limited. Two main marketing strategies have been detected among small vine growers and wineries. While big size wineries are focused on price and product variety, small vine growers, selling wine to traditional retailing, follow wine quality strategy. Indeed, big producers selling to foreign or domestic supermarket chains or to final consumers have high market power inside the wine food chain. Actually, Italy is still one of the leading organic producers in the world, also the quality of its product is perceived as having high standard. However, lack of well designed marketing plan could be a weakness for Italian exporters, as increasing competition from laggard countries, such as US, Canada, Australia, whose companies draw a well planned marketing strategy, may affect the Italian overseas market.