Millennial consumers’ wine consumption and purchasing habits and attitude towards wine innovation

The work is focused on Italian Millennials, currently representing one of the most interesting target for wine producers. In the US, Millennials’ wine consumption behaviour is already well surveyed; however, in the Old World, this phenomenon is an unexplored area. The aim of this study is to identify wine consumption and purchasing behaviour of Italian Millennials and to explore their reluctance or readiness to purchase and try unfamiliar or new wines or wine styles. The methodology includes two steps: (1) an explorative analysis, carried out through focus groups; and (2) a quantitative survey based on a specific questionnaire submitted vis a vis to consumers in 2017. Wine Neophobia Scale studied by Ristic et al., 2016, has been applied to assess whether Italian Millennials are neophobic or neophilic. Data elaboration includes an Exploratory Factor Analysis to identify latent factors on wine consumption and purchasing habits and a multivariate linear regression to explore the level of Neophilia and wine consumption and purchasing habits. Results show that Italian Millennials are rather neophilic, that is have a positive approach to unfamiliar or new wines. The wine purchasing and consumption habits show an uncertain Millennial consumers’ approach to wine novelties.