TIVAF – Expert version | Methodological framework for wine economics

1. Problem statement

Commercial databases (e.g., Orbis) systematically under‑represent small wineries. Official statistics rarely distinguish tourism from non‑tourism sales. Conventional hedonic pricing models require large cross‑sections unavailable in many appellations. TIVAF addresses this gap by providing an operational, replicable diagnostic that works with small, stratified samples (N ≈ 20).

2. Theoretical grounding

TIVAF integrates New Institutional Economics, place‑based development (institutional thickness), and hedonic price theory, embedded within an analytic narrative of regional institutional evolution.

3. Four pillars (operationalization)

Pillar 1 – Institutional‑thickness audit

Likert‑type rubric (1–5) across three domains: network integration, symbolic capital, transaction‑cost indicators. Output: winery‑level Institutional Thickness Index (median of 9 items). Inter‑rater reliability: weighted Cohen's κ > 0.60.

Pillar 2 – Multi‑channel price mapping

Records price of a representative entry‑level wine (same label, 0.75L, base tier) across GDO, specialist shop, and DTC. Absence coded as “strategic retail bypass”. Derived indicators: Information Premium, Tourism Premium.

Pillar 3 – Digital terroir & narrative scoring

Content analysis of website + social media (12‑month window). Four indicators (1–5): narrative focus, information density, engagement depth (comments+saves/likes), experiential realm. Output: Composite Digital Identity Score (1–5).

Pillar 4 – Hedonic pricing under data opacity

The framework uses a log‑linear hedonic model. The exact specification (Equation 1) is:

ln(Price_ic) = β₀ + β₁Tourism_i + β₂ Digital_i + β₃ Thickness_i + β₄ Attributes_i + β₅ Region_i + ε_ic

Where Tourism is binary (structured tourism offer), Digital and Thickness are indices from Pillars 3 and 1, Attributes includes organic certification and appellation sub‑category, and Region captures baseline differences between Pignoletto DOCG and Priorat DOQ.

Estimation: OLS with heteroskedasticity‑robust standard errors, nested specifications, leave‑one‑out sensitivity. Interpretation: Exploratory associations (not causal); coefficients approximate percentage differences in price.

4. Case selection & sampling

Contrastive case design: Pignoletto DOCG (Italy) and Priorat DOQ (Spain). Stratified sample of 20 wineries (10 per region; 5 tourism‑integrated, 5 non‑tourism).

5. Replicability & output

TIVAF includes codebook, observation forms, price mapping sheets, digital scoring rubrics, and inter‑rater reliability protocol. Generates winery‑level indices, channel price gaps, and exploratory hedonic estimates.

6. Limitations

Not a causal treatment‑effect estimator.
Small N limits generalizability.
Omits vintage and critic scores (mitigated by focusing on entry‑level wines).

7. Future applications & replicability

TIVAF is not limited to wine. The four‑pillar design – institutional audit, multi‑channel price mapping, digital narrative scoring, and parsimonious hedonic pricing – is transferable to any geographical indication (GI) or heritage‑based agricultural product, including:

Olive oil appellations (e.g., extra virgin olive oil PDOs)
Dairy products (PDO cheeses, mountain dairies)
Craft and textile GI districts
Rural tourism networks beyond wine

The methodology is replicable because all instruments (observation rubrics, price mapping forms, digital scoring sheets) are openly documented and require no proprietary data. Researchers and consortia can adapt the codebook and indices to their own product and territory with minimal modification.

8. Citation & contact

To cite TIVAF: Molina Aguirre, G.F. (2025). Tourism‑Institutional Value Appropriation Framework (TIVAF): A mixed‑methods diagnostic for small wine regions. Working paper, UNICAS/URV.

📧 giovannifrancisco.molinaaguirre@unicas.it | Back to main page

📊 TIVAF – Technical framework