Some Characteristics of Wine Innovators Available to Purchase

This article reports the findings from a survey on wine use and related consumer characteristics from 271 adult US consumers. A valid and reliable self‐report scale was used to measure wine innovativeness. Multi‐item scales also measured level of wine consumption, wine involvement, opinion leadership for wine, and real and subjective wine knowledge. As hypothesised, wine innovators reported using more wine than non‐innovators. They were also found to score higher on measures of wine involvement, wine opinion leadership, and subjective wine knowledge than those consumers less likely to be wine innovators. This pattern of characteristics is similar to that found for innovative consumers of other product fields and provides insights into the characteristics of wine innovators that marketers can use to develop better strategies for innovative wine products.