IWERC

The International Wine Economics Research Consortium (IWERC) will be an informal global network of individuals, academic centres, and professional associations, potentially comprising all the world’s wine economics researchers. It is modelled on the highly successful International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC).[1]

Motivation

Many first-time participants in the annual conferences of the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) and the European Association of Wine Economists (EuAWE) are early-career researchers (ECR). They are often from institutions without wine economics mentors or colleagues. A low-cost network could enable them to more efficiently interact with peers and mentors internationally.

The IWERC will allow ECR and mid-career researchers (MCR) to connect and plan activities related to wine economics research. It will also allow them to connect with (and get advice from) senior members of the wine economics community who will also be part of the IWERC.

Further, many ECR and MCR want to make their research more impactful. The IWERC will help them to better engage with industry to achieve that goal.

Objectives

The objectives of the IWERC are to:

• Enhance the quality and relevance of scholarly research in wine economics and closely associated disciplines.
• Encourage research collaboration across national borders and between individuals and associations of scholars engaged in research in wine economics and related disciplines.
• Facilitate communication between wine economists in universities, government agencies, and the private sector across the world.
• Develop links and synergies with closely related beverage research networks.
• Generate, regularly update and freely share regional, national, and global data and models of markets for winegrapes, wine and other beverages.
• Disseminate analyses to improve public understanding of winegrape and wine markets and associated regulatory and policy issues (including those affecting beer and spirits).

Consultation

The creation of the IWERC was first proposed by Kym Anderson in early 2025 to Karl Storchmann, Orley Ashenfelter, Julian Alston, Nick Vink, Jean-Marie Cardebat, and James Fogarty. All of them encouraged the creation of the IWERC.

Jean-Marie Cardebat invited Kym Anderson and German Puga to present the IWERC proposal at the annual general meeting of the EuAWE in Zaragoza in May 2025. The initiative was supported by a large number of conference participants, including many ECR.

Karl Storchmann invited German Puga to present the IWERC at the final session of the AAWE conference in San Luis Obispo in July 2025. He presented the initiative with Magalie Dubois and Matthew Coyne, two other ECR who had also attended the EuAWE conference in Zaragoza. The initiative got support from various ECR and MCR, as well as some senior wine economists and industry people.

Relationship with other organisations

In addition to AAWE and EuAWE, there are wine economics research centres and groups at various universities, as well as other networks of researchers in wine business, viticulture, and winemaking. Appendix 1 describes those organisations.

The IWERC will not organise conferences that compete with those of the AAWE and the EuAWE (or the AWBR). Neither will it have a membership structure that discourages researchers from joining the AAWE or the EuAWE. On the contrary, the IWERC will promote those organisations and their activities.

The IWERC will not publish its own journal, nor a working paper series. Instead, it will encourage members to submit to high-quality economics journals, including Cambridge University Press’ Journal of Wine Economics, and to offer their working papers to the AAWE working papers series.

Membership

The IWERC will aim to be very inclusive in accepting wine economics ECR and MCR as members. There will be no membership fee.

Governance

The IWERC will have three boards of volunteers. The Advisory Board will be made up of senior researchers in wine economics who will provide guidance and mentorship to the ECR and MCR. The criteria to be part of the Advisory Board will be to have a well-grounded record of experience in wine economics and a senior position equivalent to full professor in the United States. Proposed members of this board are Kym Anderson, Karl Storchmann, Orley Ashenfelter, Julian Alston, Nick Vink, and Jean-Marie Cardebat.

The Industry Board will be made up of high-profile people working in wine businesses or policy. Its board members will help ECR and MCR to better connect to those engaged in the wine industry or policy advising and thereby increase the relevance of their research.

The Executive Board will be made up of ECR and MCR. This board will be integrated by Project Leaders who will be in charge of projects related to the objectives of the IWERC. The (flexible) criteria for being part of the Executive Board will be to have a position of seniority not higher than that of an associate professor in the United States. Proposed members of this board are German Puga, Magalie Dubois, Matthew Coyne, and others who have shown an interest in joining at the AAWE and EuAWE conferences and/or subsequent events.

The Advisory and Executive Boards will start operating first. They will work together to establish the Industry Board.

Initially, the Advisory Board will be coordinated by Kym Anderson, and the Executive Board by German Puga. The IWERC will not have a formal structure such as that of an NGO. Instead, it will work as an informal collaborative project.

The IWERC will aim to evolve in its governance structure in an organic way, aiming towards democratic processes once it is well established. In the future, it may become an NGO or part of another organisation.

Projects

The IWERC will be organised around projects, each of which will be led by at least one ECR or MCR. Members will be able to propose projects, which they will then lead with the help of other ECR or MCR and, in most cases, with the support of the boards.

Some potential projects that have been raised by ECR and MCR include:

• Designing and setting up the website of the IWERC and contact details of members.
• Communicating IWERC activities and other news via emails and social media.
• Establishing a virtual platform for ECR and MCR to exchange ideas and discuss collaboration opportunities.
• Updating and generating databases that will be shared with IWERC members.
• Translating and promoting scientific research on wine economics.
• Organising webinars to advance the objectives of the IWERC and to share preliminary analyses.
• Creating a mentorship program in which senior wine economists provide advice to ECR and MCR, with a focus on linking in those who are based in institutions that do little research on wine economics.
• Planning the establishment of the Industry Board, with the help of the Advisory Board.
• Strengthening relationships with the AAWE, the EuAWE, and wine economics research centres and groups at various universities.
• Building relationships with other networks of researchers in wine business, viticulture, and winemaking.

Website

Initially, the IWERC will be hosted on the website of the Wine Economics Research Centre of the University of Adelaide. This will be at no cost. In the future, the IWERC may have its own website or be part of the website of another organisation.

Communications

In the early stages, the communication strategy will focus on emailing potential members and expanding membership through word-of-mouth. The Executive Board will then come up with a plan to have a more assertive communication strategy through social media and with the help of other organisations.

The Executive Board will also develop a plan to reach a very large number of wine economists via email. Magalie Dubois is generating a database of wine economists using data from publications in wine economics and related disciplines. She has offered to share that database with the IWERC.

Timeline

By October 2025: Create the IWERC website, to be hosted at no cost on the website of the University of Adelaide’s Wine Economics Research Centre.

By October 2025: Have more Teams/Zoom meetings with ECR who have expressed a strong interest in contributing to the IWERC.

By November 2025: Establish the Executive Board, composed of Project Leaders willing to lead projects with the help of other members.

By November 2025: Establish the Advisory Board.

By November 2025: Reach an agreement within the Executive Board on the first set of projects.

By March 2026: Establish the Industry Board.

By March 2026: Reach out to other related organisations to introduce the IWERC and discuss potential synergies.

In July 2026: Have the first face-to-face/hybrid meeting of those Executive Board members able to attend the AAWE annual conference in Perth, Western Australia.

By November 2026: Create a virtual platform for ECR and MCR to exchange ideas and discuss collaboration opportunities, including data generation and sharing.

By November 2026: Have the first IWERC webinar.

By November 2026: Have meetings across boards to coordinate a plan for 2027 and beyond, including a mentorship program and a more aggressive communication strategy.

 

Appendix 1: Other related organisations

Associations of wine economists

The first wine economics professional association emerged in Europe in 1991 with the formation and first conference of what was entitled the Vine Data Quantification Society (VDQS, so-named tongue-in-cheek because that is also the acronym for Vin délimité de qualité supérieure, the second-highest quality category of French wine). It was a grouping of a few dozen economists that met in Europe for a conference every year or so. In 2012, VDQS established a journal called Wine Economics and Policy, published initially by Elsevier but now through Florence University Press.

In 2006, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) was created, and it had its first conference in 2007. It has since met annually (except during COVID-19): six times in the United States, seven times in Europe, twice in South Africa and once each in Argentina and Georgia.

From the outset (2006), AAWE established the Journal of Wine Economics, initially with two issues per year, then three, and then four from 2017. Since 2012, JWE has been published by Cambridge University Press. AAWE also hosts a long series of Working Papers (some of which were subsequently published in revised form in JWE).

In 2020 VDQS was re-structured and re-badged as the European Association of Wine Economists (EuAWE). In so doing, it broadened to also encompass (especially grape-based) spirits, most notably Cognac. It continues to host an annual conference, usually within the European Union.

Academic centres of wine economics research

Many universities in major wine regions have had small groupings of economists focusing (often only part-time) on wine. Perhaps the most established centres are (in alphabetical order) in Adelaide, Bordeaux, Davis, Perth and Stellenbosch.

The Wine Economics Research Centre at the University of Adelaide in South Australia (WERC) was formed in 2010, having previously (since 1998) been a program within what had been that University’s Centre for International Economic Studies. It is led by Kym Anderson, with German Puga as Deputy Director.

The Bordeaux School of Economics at University of Bordeaux IV has a Wine Economics Group led by Jean-Marie Cardebat.

The University of California at Davis has a Center for Wine Economics (CWE) that is housed within its campus’s Robert Mondavi Institute. It is led by Julian Alston of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis, with Robin Goldstein as Deputy Director.

The University of Western Australia also has a new Wine Economics Group. It is led by James Fogarty.

Stellenbosch University in South Africa has a group of economists led by Nick Vink that focus occasionally on wine issues.

Related associations of researchers

The Academy of Wine Business Research (AWBR) emerged out of a desire by wine marketing researchers in eight universities (five in the EU, two in the US plus the University of South Australia) to network. Its main activity has been a conference every year or two and an online publication of the Proceedings of each conference. A total of 14 conferences were held between 2003 and 2024, in a wide range of countries (Adelaide 2003, Sonoma 2005, Montpellier 2006, Siena 2008, Auckland 2010, Bordeaux 2011, Ontario 2013, Geisenhein 2014, Adelaide 2016, Sonoma 2017, Stellenbosch 2019, virtual 2021, Dijon 2022, Verona 2024), and will be in Adelaide in February 2026. AWBR has supported the publication by Emerald of the International Journal of Wine Business Research.

Other groups in wine business include the Wine and Hospitality Management Group and the Global Wine Business Institute.

Inspired by the emergence of wine economist associations, a group of scholars interested in analysing the economics of beer and brewing created in 2009 the Beeronomics Society. It holds a conference every two years, usually hosted and facilitated by an academic institution. So far it has met either in the EU or the US, plus once in Adelaide, Australia (in 2018). The Society also organizes periodic symposia and sessions attached to major economics conferences that have been convened by other organizations.

The International Viticulture and Enology Society (IVES) is a not-for-profit global organization dedicated to the dissemination of scientific research in viticulture and enology. It was created in 2016 and publishes the open access journal OENO One. It also publishes 2-page Technical Reviews in six languages, and proceedings from various viticultural and enology conferences.

Other associations of grape and wine researchers include the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) and the Australian Society of Viticulture and Oenology (ASVO). ASEV publishes the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture and ASVO publishes the Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research.