1 Winery reputation – Do German guides provide orientation on wineries and is engagement and investment attractive for wineries? Marc Dressler University Ludwigshafen, Germany marc.dressler@hs-lu.de Anika Kost DLR Rheinpfalz, Germany anika.kost@dlr.rlp.de ◦ Purpose: For German wineries quality reputation seems to be the strategic key success factor. In the world of wine where consumers’ capabilities to assess the quality are limited reputation serves as surrogate information. Furthermore, wineries predominantly base their strategic positioning on their quality and winery reputation. Reputation building therefore is in the interest of the wineries with the need for adequate attention, strategy, and investments. Wine guides claim to play an important role in building winery reputation in Germany. This article exploits the judgments of three relevant wine guides. Gained insights increase transparency to their quality assessments. Examining firm reputation as well as collective perspectives the findings contribute to the theory of reputation. Supportive information for managerial decisions in regards to investments in quality and in reputation is delivered. ◦ Design: For an explorative study we created a database with the expert judgments of three dominant wine guides in Germany for three consecutive years, wine prices and further descriptive data. The database consists of more than 800 wineries and contains 6,229 quality ratings and 4,713 prices. All German wine growing regions, about 10% of the German winery population with direct consumer sales and more than 20% of the total wine production of Germany are represented. ◦ Findings: We find evidence for relevance of firm and collective reputation in the wine business. Individual winery reputation profits of expert judgments. To create awareness and resulting recommendations entry barriers have to be overcome. Reputation needs to be created and preserved, therefore investments are to be considered. The risks of highly volatile quality assessments once being judged and accepted as quality winery seem rather low. To be recognized in the elected group of outstanding wineries for Germany is quite a challenge. Membership as distinguished provider (VDP) is a relevant success factor. This observation further supports the notion of collective reputation effects, besides regional collective aspects. Regional reputation impacts performance but is not a result of size or cost structure of the regions. This reputation dimension is a long-term phenomenon. Actual pricing seems to reflect regional reputation where few regions over- or underprice. The growth of graded wineries in the guide population might decrease the value of honored judgments and hence their value in reputation building. ◦ Practical implications: There is an investment risk to be considered and expectations in regards to return on reputation via expert judgments by guides need to be managed. Knowing the judgments mechanisms as well as the different recognition behaviors allow for individual strategies in regards to wineries´ reputation building via guides. Wineries´ approaches should fit their strategic orientation with longstanding adequate planning and measures. Key words: quality judgments, winery performance, ranking, reputation.