AN ASSESSMENT OF THE INFORMATION AND TRAINING NEEDS OF ROMANIAN KNOWLEDGEABLE WINE CONSUMERS

This work focuses on the evaluation of the usefulness of some tools used internationally for transmiting more information about wines to consumers in order to stimulate their interest in this horticultural product. On one hand, the importance of wine contests is assessed in relation to the consumer's selection of wines. Their knowledge regarding wine contests, what represents a medal-winning wine for them and to what extent they trust this marketing tools were some of the evaluated aspects and the responses from consumers were also correlated to their self-evaluation of their own knowledge about wines. On the other hand, the usefulness of a wine museum was assessed as a tool for increasing the interest in wine in general. The declared needs of the consumers for a certain type of training and the amount of wine consumed were also correlated to their knowledge about wine. These results showed that the importance that consumers attached to wine contests is low and the interest for a wine museum is even lower, therefore the information provided to consumers should be increased first if these otherwise powerful tools are to be applied efficiently at some time in the future.