Spanish Wine Consumer Behaviour: A Stated and Revealed Preferences Analysis

Overall wine consumption in Spain is decreasing while, at the same time,Designation of Origin (DO) wine consumption is increasing gradually. This studyexamines Spanish DO wine consumer behaviour through stated preferences (SP) andrevealed preferences (RP) data. Part-worth utilities are calculated and results from bothanalyses are compared to look for similarities and differences between what respondentssay on surveys and what they really do on real purchases. Consumer segmentation isundertaken based on purchase frequencies. In a second step, we try to pool the two datasources in order to get more meaningful and robust results. Results indicate similaritiesin the consumer choice process when comparing the two data sources, especially for thepreference of the DO and wine aging attributes. The only difference detected is the pricevariable, where a concave price-utility function is obtained with the SP analysis and anegative linear price coefficient is obtained with the RP analysis. Likelihood ratiostatistic indicates that equal parameters hypothesis is rejected, meaning that it is notpossible to merge the two data sources. This is mainly due to the difference onconsumers price perception which could be explained by the different purchaseoccasion selected in each case.