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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relevance of expert opinions as a marketing tool for Pinotage amongst young South African student millennials by means of sensory hedonic testing.

Sensory hedonic testing was used because it is necessary to examine the extent to which extrinsic cues influence a wine’s intrinsic merit, as this can influence future purchase decisions. Thus, it combines marketing factors and sensory science and explores the sensory liking of food products by consumers. A total of 126 South African student millennial consumers were analysed.

The results confirm that expert opinions are an effective marketing tool. While positive expert opinions did not reinforce perceived quality for already generally liked wines, they increased perceived quality for wines that were not liked. Female student millennials specifically seem to be influenced by expert opinions and packaging, even though they show a relative dislike for Pinotage under blind tasting. These results are useful in the design of marketing strategies.

Because of the chosen research approach, it may be difficult to generalize the research results. However, future research could apply this methodology to investigate the perceived quality of wine and other food products in different countries. Furthermore, replicating this study could provide interesting comparative results.

Little is known about the liking for Pinotage wines by young South African consumers or about the cues that make them respond positively to marketing.

Despite the ongoing increase of women in the top positions, they are still underrepresented in politics. The studies that primarily focus on women’s underrepresentation in politics neglect the role of gender as a category that structures and makes sense of social practices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms that regulate the contemporary gender order in politics through discourse analysis and the contribution of the critical feminist perspective.

The study is based on 30 biographical interviews with Italian politicians and focuses on the account of their political experiences and on the meanings attributed to these.

The results of this paper underline the tendency to either absolve or blame women for gender inequality in politics through different interpretative repertoires: “Women’s disinterest toward politics,” “Politics as masculine context” and “Politics–family unbalance.” The analysis allowed to unravel the way in which the discursive practices create and reproduce the hegemonic gender order in politics.

The research is limited to 30 qualitative interviews, and so results cannot be generalized.

The findings of this paper highlight the importance of exploring issues relating to the gender gap in politics and stress the need to implement actions to promote gender equality in politics.

The paper contributes to an understanding of women’s underrepresentation in politics and offers causes for reflection on a phenomenon that has profound implications for our society.