Wine industry researchers to meet at Eastern for international workshop
Willimantic, CT (03/25/2024) — Business and economics researchers who follow the global wine industry will attend a two-day workshop at Eastern Connecticut State University in April to discuss surveys of wineries in 24 wine-producing countries that are yielding new data on patterns of wine production.
The April 19-20 academic workshop is expected to attract researchers from around the world, with presenters from Switzerland, Argentina, Italy and the United States.
The surveys, underway for four years, cover 5,500 wineries in 24 wine regions around the world. The data show how production and consumption of wine is changing, said Emiliano Villanueva, associate professor and chair of business administration at Eastern, who is hosting the workshop. While wine production and consumption are stagnant worldwide, new players are emerging in the industry, he said. The United States is now the worldwide leader in wine consumption, and China is emerging as a key consumer, too.
Climate change is creating new areas suitable for production, he said, with new wineries in Sweden. All 50 U.S. states now produce wine. While people associate U.S. production with California and Oregon, the industry is growing rapidly in New York, Virginia and Texas, which now has 500 wineries, he noted.
Connecticut's production comes from about 40 small wineries, and the workshop attendees will visit some of these during their meeting.
This is the third annual workshop devoted to the surveys. The first workshop was held in Portugal, and last year's conference was in Argentina, with 150 attending. The surveys are providing the first comparable database at the winery, rather than the country, level, said Villanueva, filling a data gap in research on the wine industry.
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Eastern Connecticut State University is the state of Connecticut's public liberal arts university, serving upwards of 4,000 students annually on its Willimantic campus. In addition to attracting students from 160 of Connecticut's 169 towns, Eastern also draws students from 30 states and eight countries. A residential campus offering 41 majors and 68 minors, Eastern offers students a strong liberal arts foundation grounded in a variety of applied learning opportunities. Ranked among the top 20 public institutions in the North by U.S. News & World Report in its 2022-23 Best Colleges ratings, Eastern has also been awarded 'Green Campus' status by the Princeton Review 13 years in a row. For more information, visit www.easternct.edu.
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