LAUSR

Abstract Product consumption is a sensory experience that can evoke a wide range of emotional responses; and accordingly, the emotional component of food consumption has been widely addressed and has appeared in marketing literature with increasing frequency. To date, there is abundant literature on emotions elicited by product consumption, but there is little research concerning emotions and wine. In this context, we develop an emotion-based segmentation based on the emotions that consumers experience when consuming wine, both considering the valence and arousal dimensions of emotions. In addition, we profile and characterize the emotion-based obtained segments. For this purpose, an emotion-based cluster analysis is conducted through a two-step cluster procedure, followed by a MANOVA test on data from 1269 wine consumers. Our findings show that the average wine consumer does not exist, and that wine consumers cannot be seen as a homogenous group. More precisely, four clusters emerge from our results experiencing different emotions in wine consumption: “emotionally unattached”, “negatives”, “contented circumspects” and “wine lovers”. Results suggest that “wine lovers” is the most attractive segment due to their strong wine emotional bond; being the “negatives” the most challenging segment for wine makers. One useful insight for wineries is that it may not be possible to satisfy all these segments with one single wine.