PROFILING THE WINE CONSUMER MARKET: CASE STUDIES ON USA AND ROMANIA

A marketing-oriented winery is capable to understand the configuration of a marketing strategy and the implications and opportunities of its implementation in the activity they carry out. This know-how allows wineries to effectively compete with other wine producers in today’s quasi-saturated, complex and challenging wine market. A winery with such an orientation is also capable to attain its aspirations and objectives through a thorough understanding of customers’ needs and wants. Within this context the scope of this paper is being sketched: to look within the wide spectrum of wine consumers and shed light on the consumer market segmentation process in order to better understand the wine consumer behaviour, values, consumption patterns and profiles. The gathered intelligence will allow winemakers to produce the wines that the consumers actually want to drink.