Been doing a bit more research on the seasonality of wine consumption. From our own experiences we can deduce that January and February are rather slow months in terms of alcohol purchase (due to excess stocks built over xmas/gifts) and consumption (new years resolutions, hangovers etc).
Had a quick scour for some data. It's hard to find on a monthly basis - detailed consumer spending data is behind paywalls. But here's a couple of charts that may or may not help your understanding / framing your thinking.
A) Roy Morgan consumption dataThis data tracks the proportion of Aussies who drink Beer (blue line), Wine (red line) and Fortified Wine (purple line) on a quarterly basis between 2005 and 2015. I have overlayed some boxes on the current quarter (Jan-March).
- We can see that the current quarter is generally the lowest point each year for both wine types.
- Most Aussies tend to drink wine in the cooler months of the year, with beer the preference in the warmer months
Important to note that this doesn't necessarily translate to/correspond with aggregate
sales volumes. Less people might drink wine this quarter, but those people who do keep drinking wine might purchase more or less of it - we can't really tell from this data. We just observe the consumption preferences across the population according to season.
B) IRi data on dollar value of spirit consumptionUnfortunately the only data I could access was related to spirits, so this data doesn't include wine. If we allow ourselves to treat spirit consumption as a suitable proxy/indicator for wine consumption then we reveal some interesting trends.
I have hidden the $value on the Y axis out of respect for the source. It's irrelevant here.
- Spirit consumption clearly decreases in January, and again in Feb. Recovers strongly in March and gradualy increases throughout the year.
- Note that 2020 is a bit different - COVID
Same data but expressed as a % change on the previous month:
Take from it what you will. If anyone's got some more relevant data i'd love to see it.
(20min delay)