Consumers today increasingly encounter products that look familiar, occupy familiar shelf spaces, or claim familiar labels while departing significantly from established conventions. Whether it is wine without alcohol, cigarettes without tobacco, or lab-grown meat, these boundary-challenging offerings create a fundamental tension between consumer expectations and product reality, raising questions of whether such products truly belong to the categories they claim. At the heart of this issue lie categorical authenticity judgments, whose consequences extend beyond mere taxonomic classification to shape consumers' willingness to try, purchase, recommend, and pay for such products. Existing research treats categorical authenticity as an ontologically grounded and resolution-directed evaluative process, in which consumers assess attribute conformity and arrive at a final verdict. Current theoretical frameworks, however, fall short in providing a complete account of how these processes unfold in the presence of substantial categorical violations. Using a qualitative, exploratory design comprising eight focus group interviews with Italian consumers (N=43), we examine perceptions and responses to dealcoholised wine — a product obtained by removing alcohol from conventionally fermented wine. Italy was chosen as the empirical setting given the deep cultural embeddedness of wine in everyday life, tradition, and social ritual. Preliminary findings reveal that categorical authenticity judgments involve two distinct evaluative dimensions, which may operate independently or jointly. When these dimensions produce conflicting signals, consumers are not always able or willing to reach a definitive authenticity verdict about the product. These findings reframe categorical authenticity from a passive, resolution-directed process to an active consumer practice, offering actionable strategies for how brands should approach the positioning and communication of boundary-challenging food and beverage products to foster adoption.
When is wine really wine? Perceived categorical authenticity of boundary-challenging food and beverage products
Roat Francesca
2026
Abstract
Consumers today increasingly encounter products that look familiar, occupy familiar shelf spaces, or claim familiar labels while departing significantly from established conventions. Whether it is wine without alcohol, cigarettes without tobacco, or lab-grown meat, these boundary-challenging offerings create a fundamental tension between consumer expectations and product reality, raising questions of whether such products truly belong to the categories they claim. At the heart of this issue lie categorical authenticity judgments, whose consequences extend beyond mere taxonomic classification to shape consumers' willingness to try, purchase, recommend, and pay for such products. Existing research treats categorical authenticity as an ontologically grounded and resolution-directed evaluative process, in which consumers assess attribute conformity and arrive at a final verdict. Current theoretical frameworks, however, fall short in providing a complete account of how these processes unfold in the presence of substantial categorical violations. Using a qualitative, exploratory design comprising eight focus group interviews with Italian consumers (N=43), we examine perceptions and responses to dealcoholised wine — a product obtained by removing alcohol from conventionally fermented wine. Italy was chosen as the empirical setting given the deep cultural embeddedness of wine in everyday life, tradition, and social ritual. Preliminary findings reveal that categorical authenticity judgments involve two distinct evaluative dimensions, which may operate independently or jointly. When these dimensions produce conflicting signals, consumers are not always able or willing to reach a definitive authenticity verdict about the product. These findings reframe categorical authenticity from a passive, resolution-directed process to an active consumer practice, offering actionable strategies for how brands should approach the positioning and communication of boundary-challenging food and beverage products to foster adoption.
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