Tim Unwin

Consumer Responses to Wine Bottle Back Labels

This paper reports on an exploratory study of consumer responses to the information contained on wine bottle back labels. It was based on research conducted with respondents in Australia in early 1999. Its central findings were: (1) that experienced consumers have difficulty in matching the tastes of wines with their back label descriptions; (2) that 57% of the respondents claim regularly to read back labels in making their purchasing decisions; (3) that the information they found most useful in helping them to identify the wines was simple descriptions of the tastes or smells of the wines; and (4) that it is difficult to draw general conclusions about the effects of gender, age, income or occupation on such responses.

Hedonic price indexes and the qualities of wines

This paper provides a critique of recent attempts to use hedonic price techniques for understanding market prices of wines. It suggests that such attempts are flawed for four main reasons: difficulties in identifying the most appropriate variables to use; uncertainty over the aims of such methods; problems in the definitions of wine quality; and internal inconsistencies. Much further research is required on consumer behaviour with respect to wine, before it will be possible to comment with any certainty about the factors influencing peoples perceptions of wine quality and their effects on price.

Images of alcohol: perceptions and the influence of advertising

This paper examines perceptions of different types of alcoholic beverage. It reports the findings of a preliminary survey of the images people associate with beer, wine and spirits, and also with t...

Saxon and early Norman viticulture in England

Abstract This paper presents a review of the evidence for viticulture and wine making in England prior to the 12th century, concentrating on the Anglo‐Saxon and early Norman periods. It suggests that the limited evidence for viticulture between the 5th and the 10th centuries has been interpreted too liberally in the past. The evidence of Domesday Book is briefly summarised, and this suggests that the Normans led to a considerable expansion in the cultivation of vines and vines making during the 11th century.

2.i or not 2.i? the assessment of undergraduate essays

Abstract Remarkably little attention is paid in the geographical literature to the assessment of undergraduate essays. This paper examines the types of essay question set and the factors influencing the grades given for the resulting essays. It argues that essay questions should seek to elicit a wide range of educational attainments, and should encourage the development of knowledge that has taken on a critical rather than a replicative stance. The main body of the paper seeks to encourage debate among geographers concerning the ways in which they allocate marks to particular essays.

The propagation of agrarian change in North-West Portugal

Abstract Geographers have generally failed to pay sufficient attention to the role of agencies propagating change in studies on the spread of innovations. This paper supplements previous studies on the influence of household structure on the pattern of adoption of new agricultural equipment and chemicals in northern Portugal, by analysing the activities of the Ministry of Agriculture, co-operatives, and companies selling tractors, chemicals and agricultural machinery. It concludes that the most significant influence on change in the last twenty years has been the activity of the companies involved in propagating that change, but that the roles of the Ministry of Agriculture and the co-operatives could be particularly important in limiting the adverse effects of future changes on the poorest farmers in the region.

Rotten to the Core: Against a Core Curriculum for Geography in UK Higher Education.

Abstract This paper examines some of the main reasons why a core curriculum for UK higher education is seen as being desirable, and challenges these arguments with particular reference to geography. It suggests that a core curriculum would be damaging for six main reasons: that problems exist over the identification of central elements which could provide the basis of a core; that the higher education experience should be enlightening rather than dehumanising; that the strength of geography as a very broad discipline would be damaged by the imposition of a core; that much of the most exciting geographical ‘knowledge’ is created at the research frontier rather than in any potential core; that there are problems over the choice of people who might determine any core; and that there are serious questions over precisely in whose interests a core might be created.