LSE Business Review presents the case of Grappa Nonino “from Cinderella into a market queen”
The Nonino revolution carried on by Giannola — the wife of Benito, an exceptional
distiller — is taken as a case study by one of the most influential academic reviews
in the world: the London School of Economics (LSE) Business Review.
The case of Nonino Grappa, “from Cinderella into a market queen” shows what is
needed to elevate the status of a whole market category.
“Giannola and her family, thanks to their Grappa di Picolit, created a beachhead into
the expensive high status category occupied by foreign spirits; other producers
followed and, eventually, the whole meaning of grappa in Italian society turned on
its head. Grappa became ‘lo spirito nazionale’, at equal level with whisky and
cognac. […] An hedonic must of Italian after-dinner tasting”.
The article is based on the paper How Cinderella Became a Queen Theorizing Radical
Status Change, written by Professors Giuseppe Delmestri and Royston Greenwood,
and published in Administrative Science Quarterly, December 2016.
