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The purpose of this paper is to show that consumer education in the form of information can effectively overcome adoption barriers to new and innovative wine packaging. This effectiveness depends on both the degree in packaging innovation and the level of consumer involvement.

The paper is based on an online experiment conducted with a sample of 427 German consumers to analyse the perception of consumers about innovative packaging. The experiment featured three different packaging options: bottles with screw-cap closures, bag-in-box and StackTek®. For each packaging form, a treatment group with additional information about the packaging and a reference group without this information were surveyed. ANOVA and t-tests were carried out to test the hypotheses. A moderated regression analysis was used to examine the effect of involvement in combination with information on intention to buy.

The results revealed that low-involvement consumers react positively to additional information about the benefits of a new packaging. For highly involved consumers, however, the effect of information is not significant. Furthermore, the analysis showed that low-involvement consumers mainly buy wine in supermarkets.

Information about new packaging forms should be presented in places where low-involvement consumers buy wine, such as at supermarkets. These consumers can be influenced by the additional information about the innovative packaging.

The use of a moderated regression analysis in the context of wine packaging and involvement is a first and reveals new and valuable insights.

Fungus-resistant grape varieties (FRGVs) are the key to more environment-friendly wine growing. This paper aims to examine whether German consumers are willing to buy environment-friendly wines. The study focuses on reducing the amount of fungicides applied and the improvement of the carbon footprint, which are both related to the FRGVs . Furthermore, a cluster analysis leads to more insights into the consumer groups that are open to environment-friendly wine.

A choice experiment was conducted among 1,500 German wine drinkers with the following attributes: “reduction of pesticides”, “reduction of carbon emissions”,“familiarity with the grape variety”,“organic certification”, the slogan “better for the environment” and“price”. The individual-level, part-worth utilities were estimated using the Hierarchical Bayes method. The Ward’s method was used to cluster the individual-level, part-worth utilities. The participants’ wine involvement and environmentalism are used to further analyse the sample.

The most important attribute is “price”, followed by the “familiarity with the grape variety” and the “reduction of pesticides” and of “carbon emissions”. The least important attribute is “better for the environment”. The cluster analysis results in three clusters: the green-minded, the traditionalists and the price-minded.

The insights about the consumer acceptance of environment-friendly wines can be used to market these wines more effectively to consumers.

This is the first study that combines a choice experiment with attributes that are derived from the benefits of fungus-resistant grape varieties.