There is no sailor who has not felt the moment when the season changes. Mornings become fresher, the tramontane sharper, and the sun sets earlier, into golden tones that gild the waves. The sails, sluggish only yesterday under the heat, now dance with the unpredictable wind of late August.
This transition is not only meteorological but deeply emotional. Its contemporary name was given by pop culture: when Lana Del Rey sang “Summertime Sadness”, her glamorous and melancholic voice became the symbol of a global feeling – nostalgia for beauty that is already fading. That ballad of late summer entered our vocabulary and became a cultural sign of an atmosphere.

For sailors, that moment is stronger than for anyone else. The sea is not a backdrop, it is a living interlocutor. Sailing teaches us the rhythm of nature, and the end of summer sharpens the awareness of the fragility of the moment. 
It is precisely in this emotional space that a new and increasingly powerful trend is emerging in wine culture – wine ceases to be merely a gourmet choice and becomes a true companion to our moods, a deeper path to experiencing moments, and an intimate part of the emotional landscape.

Wine as an emotional experience, not just a drink

Traditionally, wine has been closely tied to gastronomy, terroir, and cultural customs. However, the year 2025 brings a new perspective among wine communities and consumers: the central question becomes – “How do you feel today?” Instead of focusing solely on food pairings, people choose wines based on their personal mood, the current experience, and even the music surrounding them. This somewhat revolutionary shift reflects the contemporary desire for a fuller, more authentic enjoyment that connects the senses and emotions into a unified whole.

1. The philosophy of melancholy

The melancholy of late summer is not new. It is a historical category of human experience. Goethe wrote of autumn as a “maturity inseparable from the beauty of transience.” For him, the sunset bore a double meaning: the end, and a moment of full brilliance.
Similarly, Kierkegaard described sorrow as “the most faithful friend of man’s inner life.” It is not an enemy but a companion. What we today call “summer sadness” reflects exactly this thought: it is not depression, but a bittersweet awareness of the passing of joy.
At sea, such feelings translate into everyday impressions: a shorter day, an emptier berth, the chill of the handrail under your palm. Philosophy becomes experience.

2. The anthropology of wine

Wine has always been more than a beverage – it is a cultural symbol. In ancient Greek symposia it accompanied debates, liberating thought and emotions. In Dionysian rituals, it joined body and spirit. In Christianity, wine became the blood of communion.
In the Mediterranean, opening a bottle marks the start of conversation, slow enjoyment, recognition of the evening. For sailors, it means: “The anchor is down, now we belong to a greater rhythm.” In the moments of late-summer melancholy, wine becomes what we might call the language of transience – a ritualized way to acknowledge an ending while remaining inside the beauty of that ending.

3. Pairing moods and wines: When the Glass Speaks to the Soul

The modern wine culture increasingly promotes pairing beyond food: with music, books, weather, feelings. And at sea, everything is dictated by nature anyway.

• Red wine for a broken summer heart
Plavac mali or Babić – powerful, meteorologically serious wines, like a friend who doesn’t say much but sits beside you as the night advances.

• Rainy day and jazz records
September showers over the marina, Miles Davis on the speaker, and in the glass a Pinot Noir or Teran. Wine and notes melt into the same rhythm as the rain.

• White wine for the extended sunsets
September horizons burn with copper and violet. Malvasia – airy, mineral – is drunk like drops of light itself.

• Rosé: A bridge between two worlds
Rosé is a transitional wine, just like the end of summer. Nostalgia in a glass, yet with a smile to keep it light.

4. The Sea as the stage of melancholy

In the city, autumn means rain and leaves on asphalt. At sea, autumn means an empty horizon, louder silence, a slower harbor rhythm. That is why nautical sadness is open, not closed: it gazes into infinity.
“Summer sadness” at a mooring or anchorage is not claustrophobia, but spaciousness. The sea can even give when it takes: the feeling that sorrow is not an obstacle, but a space in which to breathe.

5. Books, music and wine

An aesthetic experience becomes full only when several elements join. Baudelaire, in his spleen, calls wine “wings that carry one outside the world.” Camus, in his Mediterranean essays, sees sunsets as moments of absolute beauty.
On a September sail, this triangle arises naturally: Summertime Sadness in the background, a glass of Plavac in hand, and Camus’s Summer on the cabin table. Or, in a quieter night: a jazz record, rosé, Baudelaire. At sea, such combinations are not a pose but a way of living the moment.

6. The psychology of transition

Psychologists call seasonal crossings liminal experiences. They are neither an end nor a beginning, but a threshold. The end of summer carries a strong emotional charge because it marks a farewell to freedom, play, expansion.
For sailors, it is the moment when unexpected routes, night swims, and seasonal loves end. “Summer sadness” is not weakness, but decompression: descending from the heights of intensity to the rhythm of introspection. And in this game, wine is the ritual that gives the feeling structure. Each sip says: I know something is ending – and I want to live it fully.

7. Wine as time in a bottle

Nothing symbolizes transience better than wine. Fermentation, aging – all recall the passage of time that leaves a trace. A bottle of Plavac opened in September unites past and present; the years of the wine meet the season of nature.
Just as summer leaves in us the maturity of memory, so does wine carry within it the mineral trace of its years. In one sip we feel both what has been and what is vanishing.

Three wines for the end of summer

• Plavac Mali (Pelješac/Dingač) – for night conversations and introspective moments.
•  Istrian Malvasia – for sunsets on deck, pure and fresh.
• Rosé from Skradin– for extended memories and light evenings.

September sailing soundtrack

• Summertime Sadness – Lana Del Rey
• Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
• Águas de Março – Antonio Carlos Jobim

Books that keep the summer alive

• Albert Camus – Summer
• Marguerite Duras – The Lover
• Charles Baudelaire – The Flowers of evil
• Marcel Proust – In Search of lost time (passages on childhood and light)

Melancholy as a luxury of the spirit

“Summertime sadness” is not pain to be removed. It is an emotion to be embraced: a luxury of the spirit, a sign that we feel deeply. Sailors will best understand this, for the sea always speaks the language of cyclical transience. Each wave reminds us: never the same, yet always the same.
Wine becomes our translation of the emotion. A glass of red wine with jazz and the sound of the sea is not just pleasure, but a philosophical act: recognition that beauty has an expiration date, yet that is precisely why we love it.
When, for the last time of the season, we drop anchor, take down the sails, and raise a glass to the September sunset, we know: summer is leaving, but it remains within us. The sea will open again, and wine will remind us – it is transience itself that carries beauty.