Seasonality to buying and drinking?

I’ve noticed a seasonality to my enthusiasm for buying and drinking wine. Does this happen to you all?
Am mostly a Burg/Riesling guy. I think some patterns are driven by marketing: Most of the best Burg offers I see come out Feb-April and Sep-Nov.

But my interest does really seem to ebb at predictable times of the year.
What about you?

My patterns:
Sep-Dec: As the weather cools, interest, tasting and buying peaks. CT says 40% of purchases
Jan-April: In denial and “not buying so much wine this year”, but still um, buying… 40%
May-Aug: Weather is hot, buying is not. Time to sip a chilled white maybe…

I’m curious if this happens others.

Buying - driven mainly by mailer/offers that tend to come Winter/Spring or Fall, plus holiday sales, lead me to do bulk of buying from Nov.-April

Drinking - less seasonality, though variation on types - more white quaffers in summer.

1 Like

Buying is based on offers. Seasons are not a factor. For the most part, consumption is fairly even with the exception of the 4th quarter. Holidays and gatherings increase consumption that quarter.

1 Like

I find a pretty direct correlation of my wine buying to my stress level, which is in my case entirely independent of weather/time of year

Interestingly my consumption is much steadier, if not entirely decoupled vs. stress

1 Like

I definitely have some seasonal shifts.

My summer whites tend to be lighter/racier/less oaky. I rarely touch Chardonnay in the summer but like it well enough when its cooler.

For reds, I drink more zins and syrahs in the summer when a lot of the meals we are making are coming off the grill or smoker. The cabs mostly come out in cooler weather.

1 Like

Less buying in summer, because it’s just too hot and cannot ship or even travel with wine in a car.
Rose, save for drinking in winter, when you need a pretty color to look at and warm your soul.

1 Like

Buy when the wines are released, no seasonality

May 15-Oct 15 drink a few whites, whiskey and vodka ‘cause it’s too hot for reds, unless it rains in the afternoon (which it hasn’t this year) or we go out to dinner (not often)

Oct 15-May 15 game on for reds, make up for lost time

Yeah but I’m in a wine area right now and it’s near 100º so drinking is refreshing, especially Rose’s.

As I’ve posted often here, I match wines with seasons just as much as I match wines with foods.

Buying, no. I buy wines any time of year, but never ship them in heat. Cold does not scare me.

Dan Kravitz

1 Like

I definitely drink more wine during the fall harvest season. Good thing I live in Southern California with fairly hot temperatures from June to October, or I’d be buying all year long!

My buying and Champagne drinking is non-seasonal, but my red wine consumption drops dramatically in the summer.

I haven’t seen a different season in years…

3 Likes

That’s what happens when you live so close to the Equator!

We have, for the last 25 years, always left our home in FL for cooler climes during the summer and thus, really have only one season - because we chase that which is temperate.
So white wine has become our strong preference.

1 Like

After moving to Singapore, my consumption of white, pink, sparkling went up a lot. Turns out they go way better with most food anyway. We’ll see if that keeps up when I decide to head out…

I’m not sure about seasonality but I’ve found it tends to happen more when I’m awake.

Buying peaks in early part of year, then the annual wine budget runs out.

A good question.

My 4th Q is consistently where I spend the most. 2nd Q and 3rd Q are about the same and 1st Q is usually where I spend the least.

When I look where I spend I see three clear trends: 1) auction season, 2) offer season, 3) search season.

The reason my Q4 is the max has to do with the combo of offers and auctions at that time. Conversely, in Q1 I don’t really get many offers or so much auction-wise (starts to pick up toward the end of Q1).

I pass on a lot of good offers in the summer because I never want anything shipped that time of year and I’m not that enthused about relying on the vendor to store for months on end. Fall is when my club memberships hit, both buying and shipping so that’s a bigger cash outlay that time of year.

Drinking-wise, when it’s really warm I’m pretty much uninterested in reds and drink whites, a few roses, and especially lately increasing amounts of Champagne. But it often cools off nicely in the summer evenings where I currently live and I really enjoy pinot, red Burg, lighter reds including grenache, and CA zin blends, the latter with grilling which I do a lot in the summer. Much more big reds in the fall/winter/early spring.

Agree on not shipping - I’ve been ok with the various places I buy from to either hold for me or I employ cold chain shipping.

On the variety point, I was curious so I checked: my white and red purchases show similar patterns with the one difference just being when certain offers happen.

The question this thread raised is: what % of people’s consumption is on purchase vs pull from cellar? I’d expect the more you are in the former camp the more seasonal while those in the latter camp are likely less seasonal.