Multifunctional diversification for the Italian wine producers: the state of the art in the adoption of deepening strategies

The paper aims at underlining how the application of deepening, broadening and regrounding strategies (as defined by the Van der Ploeg “Triangle”) might help Italian wineries to maintain themselves competitive as they face new challenges on the internal market. Starting from an overview of the use of deepening, broadening and regrounding strategies in the Italian primary sector, the paper analyses the state of the art of the implementation of the main forms of deepening strategies by the wine producers using Census data and a specific direct survey. The paper highlights how the level of implementation of certain deepening strategies is still very far from its potential extent. The findings help to understand that the difficulties in filling this gap are basically due to both the hesitancy with which a very tradition-driven production sector approaches innovation and the structural problems of the sector.