(NYTimes) - Beer and football may go together like wine and cheese. But lately more and more people seem be favoring a Bordeaux over a Bud Light.

Wine has made inroads into football stadiums and living rooms across the United States on Sundays.

Americans still buy far more beer than wine over all, so there is no end coming to the beer commercials. But wine sales have been steadily growing faster than beer sales, especially around Super Bowl time, a reflection of the changing preferences of younger fans and an increase in women who watch the country’s biggest sporting event.

“The perception is that it’s all about beer, but it’s about people serving a wide variety of alcohol,” said Danny Brager, senior vice president at Nielsen, which tracks beverage and alcohol sales. “The Super Bowl and beer tend to be tied together in consumers’ minds, but consumers are shopping around.”

This year, wine will be more in the spotlight because the Super Bowl will be played in Santa Clara, Calif., near some of the biggest and most prominent vineyards in the country.

Not surprisingly, wine is a staple in Levi’s Stadium — home of the San Francisco 49ers and the site of the Super Bowl — where fans in the 174 suites have access to vintages from more than 60 high-quality California wineries through a program called Appellation 49.

Wineries from Sonoma County and elsewhere in the region are also promoting their wines to the million or so people expected to visit the region during the week before the game.

Beyond the Bay Area, wine is also making inroads into a sport better known for guzzling than sipping.

According to Nielsen, consumer spending nationally on beer rises by about $40 million in the week before the Super Bowl compared with the average spending on beer the three weeks before the game. During that same time, spending on wine and spirits grows by about $20 million.

The gap is not as wide as it may appear when one considers that beer is a much larger category, Brager said.

During the entire year, beer makes up 48 percent of all spending on alcohol at groceries, liquor stores and other retail outlets. About 37 percent is spent on spirits and 15 percent on wine, according to Nielsen. Beer’s share of overall spending on alcohol has declined by nearly five percentage points in the last 10 years.