This Wine Advent Calendar Sold Out Last Year & It's About to Go on Sale

It's like advent calendars from childhood, only for adults.

Wine Advent Calendar 2020
Courtesy of Vinebox
Courtesy of Vinebox

I don't want to put the burden of responsibility for what's happening now on a year. That's too easy. Pick whatever headache you want from relatively minor struggles with distance learning to the climate crisis, it wasn't caused by a year. Still, rationality can't erase the feeling that a lot of people are going to be happy for the metaphorical fresh start of a new year in 2021, even if it can't truly wipe the slate clean. 

As you plan a joyful farewell to the year amid plans for better days, an advent calendar full of booze might be a nice start. You could wait until December or string together a series of advent calendars so you can start right now. Either way, some of the year's best and most interesting alcohol-based advent calendars are available now and will disappear in a hurry. (That Flaviar whiskey advent calendar sold out in just weeks last year.) Vinebox, a wine sampling subscription service with a focus on wines that are not mass-produced, is for the fifth consecutive year offering its wine advent calendar, Vinebox 12 Nights "Home for the Holidays."

The limited-edition box comes with 12 vials of wine -- eight reds and four whites. The box of 3.4-ounce (10cl) vials will run you $129 when it finally goes on sale on September 28. When it arrives at your doorstep, it appears like it'll look a little bit like an advent calendar full of perfume samples. It's not clear how long you'll have to make sure you get one before they're gone, but a representative tells Thrillist that the calendars have sold out in the past. 

The advent calendar is one way to get a taste of what Vinebox does, delivering "seasonally-themed boxes that include wine vials of varying types." The company leans on sommeliers and experts to dig up the samples, "whether they're just bottled vintages from exciting new regions or cellar finds from a decade ago." It's also a way to just get ta taste of some wine to mix up your drinking regimen as we barrel into the fall.

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Dustin Nelson is a Senior Staff Writer at Thrillist. Follow him @dlukenelson.