Wines from Lazio Region: an Evaluation from Three Major Italian Wine Guides

The paper is a first attempt of evaluating the perceived quality and consumers’ appreciation of the main wines of Lazio Region. This is done through the analysis of data on experts’ evaluation on these wines and on consumers’ prices as released in 3 major Italian wine guides: Gambero Rosso, l’Espresso and AIS (Italian Sommelier Association). Results show that market visibility, positioning and reputation of these products, overall, are facing some difficulties. However, is also show that the efforts made so far by the more dynamic components of these chains are starting to produce some positive results. We also built a simple hedonic price model in order to evaluate to what extent experts’ evaluation affects consumers’ price the originality of our contribution is to refer to 3 guides and to test for the effect of being reviewed by more than one guide. Results show that the Oenologists’ evaluation significantly raises prices and that this effect is larger for red wines than for red ones. Furthermore, the model confirms that the reputation of many DOC certifications from Lazio Region is not still very much appreciated by the market, as for consumers’ they add a negative price premium when compared to other typologies.