Begriffsbestimmungen und Erscheinungsformen von Vinotheken – ein typologischer Ansatz zur Bildung real existierender Typen/Vinotheques: Definition and Manifestations – An Approach to Generate Real Existing Types

Abstract

The distribution channels for wine are manifold and depending on company size, business strategy, the region, and various other factors. For winemaker’s direct sales or so-called cellar door sales have an especially high priority, in particular for small-scale wine producers. The advantages of this distribution channel have repeatedly been examined and analysed. Unlike small wine maker businesses, especially large-scale wine producers (mainly in the new world of wine and viniculture) predominantly depend on retail and wholesale trade for wine marketing and thus mainly prefer an indirect sales structure. One important channel for selling wine is a wine-shop, especially the in Germany so called vinothek as a form of direct sales. Unfortunately, the characteristics of wine-shops or vinotheks vary considerably and thus even experts have no clear definition for this term or concept. Many experts’ explanations exist but none are clearly defined. Not even literature offers a clear dividing concept and gives only scarce explanatory approaches. Main questions of the study are: What is a vinothek? Which characteristics describe a vinothek (wine shop)? Do various types of vinotheks (wine shops) exist? And finally is it possible to identify common features amongst the various types of existing vinotheks (wine shops), which to a certain extent could be considered as typical? Research work based on various methodical approaches. To fix a frame for the research work experts were interviewed and answered questions concerning definitions and the design and different appearance forms of vinotheks. Their answers led to a very heterogeneous picture. The methodical core of the resulting necessity for systematization is a typological approach. Based on a systematic literature research, criteria were defined, which should exactly describe a vinothek (i. e. product range, product presentation, offer of wine tasting events, price policy). In this case, literature of a neighbouring discipline concerning retail management was consulted, because vinotheks (wine shops) in principle are retailers of wine. Following that process, the results and insights of the baseline study were presented to the same experts for a renewed opinion. The finally gained perceptions link to the literature findings and corroborate the existence of Vintners’ Vinotheks and „Orts-/Gebiets“ Vinotheks (local/regional Vinotheks). Another real existing type of vinotheks was identified and termed Urban Vinothek. These three types notably distinguish themselves concerning their range of products, location and target group. As a result, vinotheks are to be defined as a specific form of enterprise that cannot be found elsewhere. However, the distinction between a vinothek and a specialty store for wine (wine shop) is not entirely without overlaps. This has been considered in the definition of the term Vinothek for the German-speaking area.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 2 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.