Attitudes towards wine consumption: a comparative study of two countires

Wine has been consumed for ages. Throughout history, although its popularity has varied, it has always existed as a drink with a long story behind it. Today, the wine market has become a big regional business. Matt Kramer, an American wine writer, tried to translate the French word “terroir,” which explains wine’s ability to convey a sense of place. He settled on “somewhereness.” The idea behind this is that a good wine should taste like it came from some particular place in the world (Prial, 1992). In some European countries a meal without a glass of wine is not a proper meal. Surprisingly, hardly any studies have been published, until now, that reveal more characteristics of the European wine market, although most of wine is produced and consumed in Europe (OIV, 2008). In our literature review we found very few European studies on the wine market. Those are; a cross-national study with French and Australian consumers (Aurifeille et al., 2002); one that analysed the market in Denmark but used an occasion-based approach (Berni et al., 2005); as well as the one that segmented a portion of the Spanish wine market on geographical basis, albeit with little success, as the authors themselves admit (Sanchez, Gil, 1998). Recently, Brunner and Siegrist (2011) explored the wine market in German-speaking Switzerland, while Cacic, Tratnik, Gajdos, Kljusuric, Cacic and Kovacevic (2011) researched wines with geographical indication awareness among Croatian consumers. Little effort has been devoted to consumer-oriented wine marketing as well (Brunner, Siegrist, 2011). Producers have relied mostly on the reputation of their countries, vineyards or grapes as the main features of differential advantage (Felzensztein et al., 2004). Brunner and Siegrist (2011) wrote that the first step in a more serious approach to wine marketing is to gain a thorough understanding of the wine consumers in a particular market. In terms of world’s wine production, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not well known in the production of bottled wines. But, compared to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia has had more success in producing and promoting its wines. In the book Wines of the World (Keevil, 2006), Croatia is mentioned as a wine country together with Slovenia in the Middle and East European group, while Bosnia and Herzegovina is not mentioned at all. One of the reasons for this may lie in fact that, in comparison with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia has a slightly better geographical location for wine production. For the very first time, in 2004, the value of wine import was higher than the value of export from Croatia (CBS, 2008). Wine import into Croatia has even grown in recent years. From five times greater import than export in 2008 (Kneževic, 2009), this ratio has even risen to seven times in 2010. Croatia now imports 15 million liters of wine per year, and exports only 2.5 million liters (Matosevic, 2011). Major wine export partners are Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although Croatian wines have won a variety of awards at the international and global level, they are still unknown (Kneževic, 2009). As Croatia has different producing regions of wine, there is not any dominant sort of wine produced. The type of produced wine depends on the region of origin. This fact illustrates the opportunity for wine producers of having to produce more expensive wines. This trend is two-sided. On the one hand, more expensive wines yield higher profits through added value, which products have in terms of quality, packing, image etc. But, at the same time, western European markets, which are one of the export destinations for Croatian wines, have a lot of high quality wines which people can afford at low prices (Tasler, 2011). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the most important wine region is Herzegovina. The origins of wine growing in this area date back to the Roman period. The importance of Herzegovina as a wine growing region is in its geographical location. A Dinaric region with a Mediterranean climate and vegetation, it is sometimes called California of the Balkans with reference to wine (Azinovic, 2010). The best known wine grapes of Herzegovina region are Žilavka and Blatina. Herzegovina’s geographical and historical location indicates a great potential for wine production in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, some barriers impede the development of wine production in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A major obstacle was the Wine Act adopted in 2008, and revoked shortly after its implementation due to its ambiguity. The new Wine Act should bring more order to the wine market (Nezavisne.com/Bizon.ba, 2010) and should help to reduce the wine black market. Until then, no action at the country level can be taken, such as attending international wine fairs and so on. According to the data of the Chamber of Economy of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the import of wines into Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost five times greater than the export of wines from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Biznis.ba, 2009). Barbaric notes that, in order to overcome this ratio, wine exports will have to rise; this would be possible by making more investments in marketing and promotion, as well as by returning to old export markets on which Herzegovina’s wines are still well known (Vinarija, 2008). The main aim of this research was to follow Siegrist’s (2011) suggestion and to discover attitudes towards wine selection and consumption in neighbouring countries with different cultures and traditions: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. These countries were chosen because of their geographical, cultural and historical connections and also because both have natural resources for wine production. The consequences of the recent economic downturn are still very present in both countries. This makes it even more critical for local wineries and marketers to understand the underlying of reasons local consumers’ purchases and consumption behaviours. Consumers in both countries are faced with a choice between familiar regional and foreign wines. What drives their choice? Are they looking for a familiar “somewhereness” or are they being ethnocentric? Therefore, the purpose of this paper is (1) to examine local (in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia) residents’ attitudes towards local wines (Bosnian and Croatian) (2) to examine potential similarities and differences between these two countries regarding attitudes towards wine consumption and selection.