How Drinking Windows Work

“When should I drink this?” is the question a wine label never answers. Sommo answers it with a window, a span of years rather than a single date, because that is how wine actually behaves. A great Barolo from Nebbiolo does not become “ready” on one Tuesday and “over” on another. It climbs, plateaus, and declines. The window describes the whole arc.

Why a window, not a year

A single “drink by” year is precise and usually wrong. Wine ageing is a curve, not a deadline. Sommo describes that curve so you can plan: open the youngest bottles of a case first, hold the rest, and catch each one near its best.

The four numbers

Every age-worthy wine gets four dates that, together, draw the curve:

• Drink from. The earliest the wine is worth opening. Before this, it is likely closed or too firm.
• Peak from. The start of the sweet spot, when the wine is showing well.
• Peak until. The end of the plateau, the last of its best years.
• Drink until. The outer edge, after which it is likely fading.

You do not have to read four dates every time. Sommo turns them into one plain status.

How the status changes

As each year ticks over, a wine moves through five states, and your rack colours change to match:

• Too young. Before the drink-from date. Patience pays.
• Approaching. Nearly there, enjoyable now, better soon.
• Prime. Inside the peak. This is the bottle to open tonight.
• Declining. Past the plateau but still drinking.
• Past prime. Likely beyond its best on consensus.

This is the same model the cellar uses for its colour coding and for the gentle push notification when a bottle enters its prime. No streaks, no nagging, just a nudge when one of your wines is ready.

What Sommo looks at

The window is an estimate from the wine itself, weighing:

• Structure: tannin, acidity and concentration, the scaffolding that lets a wine age.
• Grape and region: a Nebbiolo from Piedmont and a Pinot Noir from Burgundy age on very different schedules.
• Vintage quality: a strong year ages longer than a dilute one.
• Producer style: some houses build for the long haul, others for early charm.

Vintage intelligence

A vintage is not just a number on the label. The same wine from two years can want a decade between their windows. Sommo factors in what the vintage means: its overall quality, its character, and notable growing-season conditions. This is the same enrichment that runs after a label scan, so a scanned bottle and a cellared one speak the same language.

How sure Sommo is

Not every estimate deserves the same confidence, so Sommo shows one. High, medium or low. A wide window with low confidence is honest uncertainty, not vagueness: it means the wine could go several ways and you should taste as you go rather than trust a narrow date. I would rather show you a broad, candid range than a tight, false one.

What Sommo assumes

The default window assumes good, stable cellaring, roughly cellar temperature and away from heat and light. That is the only fair baseline when the app cannot see your storage. Heat, temperature swings and bright light all shorten a wine’s life, sometimes dramatically. Per-bottle storage history and windows tuned to your own palate are being built; until they ship, the date reflects the wine, not your particular fridge.

Your part

The best calibration is your own glass. If you have a case, open one bottle early and rate it in your journal. That single data point tells you more about how the wine is ageing in your conditions than any model can. Over time, your notes are what will let Sommo personalise windows to your taste, the way it already learns your palate.

Where it stops

A drinking window is a forecast, and forecasts have limits:

• The cork lottery. A single faulty cork can end a wine early, and no model can see that coming.
• Storage Sommo cannot see. A bottle baked in a warm flat ages faster than the same wine in a cool cellar.
• Consensus versus your palate. Windows lean on broad agreement about a wine. If you love older, savoury bottles or fresh, primary fruit, your ideal moment may sit earlier or later than the crowd’s.

The full picture of what Sommo can and cannot know is on the limitations page.

In the app

Drinking windows live in the wine cellar: a timeline for each bottle, rack colours that shift as wines ripen, and a quiet notification when one enters its prime. For a wider look at how Sommo compares to dedicated cellar tools, see the best wine cellar apps on the blog, or my honest take on Sommo versus CellarTracker. Collectors get the most from it: here is Sommo for wine collectors.

Frequently asked.