![]() This expansion was fuelled by increasing demand for wine in countries with no-or very little-wine production, also stimulated by intriguing wine guides. It was from this position that the Italian wine sector encountered the globalisation wave, which began after World War II but has accelerated since 1990, with an unprecedented expansion of international wine trade, “which it then did so spectacularly, albeit unevenly, and which led to the democratisation of wine consumption in many more countries” (Anderson and Pinilla 2018, p. After the Golden Age of Falerno in Roman times, viticulture and wine production returned to the fore in the tenth-century and continued to remain so over later centuries, with most of the cultivation devoted to poor wines for popular consumption and only a small part to the production of fine wines, intended mainly for local aristocracy and ecclesiastical hierarchies. Throughout time, wine has been a cheap source of energy, an essential beverage when water was unsafe to drink, and a symbolic element of social celebrations. ![]() Wine is one of Italian agriculture’s most traditional products and one of the most characterising and constant elements of the diet of the Italian population. The authors would also like to thank Tiziana Sarnari of ISMEA for providing crucial information. The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees and to the Editor for their comments on an earlier draft, which substantially improved the paper. This analysis also underlines the differences between the Italian sector and its competitors from the Old and New World. To support this hypothesis, we analyse the historical evolution of the sector and its drivers, the structural features of the different phases of the wine chain (grape growing, winemaking, bottling and distribution), the market relationships within the chain and the national and European policies favouring the sector. Such networks can overcome the weakness represented by the low concentration and small average size of the operators. These networks include operators such as Cooperatives and Consorzi di Tutela, upstream and downstream industries and services, tourism, research and educational bodies. The presence of numerous networks, some of which are formal and others informal, gives most Italian local production systems specialising in grapes and wine the characteristics of industrial districts, due to the local social capital that is stratified there. We propose several elements in support of the hypothesis that the Italian wine sector’s success is linked to favourable elements of the Porter Diamond Model (5 out of 6) but also to the “district” nature of a large part of the sector. This paradox has not been investigated in literature. This is despite the fact that it is fragmented in terms of products, prices and consumption context, and, in particular, despite the fact that it is characterised by an organisation that hinders the full exploitation of economies of scale. The Italian wine supply chain has performed well in recent decades both in terms of profitability and success on the domestic and international markets.
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