Do you know what's in your cellar?

Hi all,

Based on some of the guessing in the posting in reply to the question:
"What do you have in your wine cellar?"
I am starting this thread.

I will split the questions:

1. Do you keep track of what's in your cellar?
If you do, what do you use?
o Special software
o Spreadsheet - (Excel)
o Hand written list

2. Do you know what in the bottom of the pile, or will those mature wines die of old age down there?

o I do know, but I am too lazy to get those bottles out, tend to do Last In First Out (LIFO)
o I think I know, but I am not sure
o No idea, may be in for a surprise, did not take manual inventory for some years now

3. what do you use for cellaring?

o Wine fridge - French style - wine in piles
o Wine fridge - "modern" style - individual shelves, no piling
o Basement
o Wine room
o Any of the above plus - "overflow area" - still in the original boxes

Eli

Well, I'll be the first to answer my own quiz:

1. Do you keep track of what's in your cellar?
If you do, what do you use?
o Special software
o Spreadsheet - (Excel)
o Hand written list

I use Excel, I stick labels to the bottles and try to keep track of everything that goes in and out. For each purchase I give a "lot" number, so if a lemon is discovered, I will be able to identify the date and place the bottle was purchased. I also keep the score and drinking window as suggested by Rogov.

2. Do you know what in the bottom of the pile, or will those mature wines die of old age down there?

o I do know, but I am too lazy to get those bottles out, tend to do Last In First Out (LIFO)
o I think I know, but I am not sure
o No idea, may be in for a surprise, did not take manual inventory for some years now

My collection is still very young, so I do not have this problem yet. I know people who would pick answer number 2 or 3.

3. what do you use for cellaring?

o Wine fridge - French style - wine in piles
o Wine fridge - "modern" style - individual shelves, no piling
o Basement
o Wine room
o Any of the above plus - "overflow area" - still in the original boxes

Two fridges, one with 150 - individual shelves, and one with 50 - only 3 shelves
Overflow is kept at the wineries and sometimes at the wine shop, trying to avoid transportation in 30+ degrees, and as Israel is not too big, I go for personal pickup or coordinated personal delivery by the winery staff maker.

Eli

Eli
1) Cellartracker - I used to use a spreadsheet, but the functionality and usability of CT shows Eric Le Vine's skills and interests off very well

2) A really good question - yes I do have a (usually) very accurate picture of what's there and even when I think it will be at or near peak... that said I'm very much not a slave to those dates and am happy in the knowledge I have wines that are well past their notional peak, yet there time will come. A useful justification for that coming in tonights wine - 1998 Masi Bardolino, a wine that I mentally have down as a 2-3 year prospect, yet really is very enjoyable at a decade old.

3) We now have two wine fridges, but also still have a relatively cool understairs area. This is in part justified by the distinct lack of 30C days in UK (hey even a 20C day might be appreciated at the moment ). One wine fridge is fully shelved, the other a mix of shelves & bins - but would prefer all shelved, even if that meant 10% less bottles in there.

For me cellaring wine is an important part of the hobby, though I do still often buy mature wines at auction (the Bardolino came as part of a mixed lot, with a few more promising bottles). I really enjoy the idea of just popping into the collection to see what takes my fancy, or if a specific wine style is called for, that I have a decent chance to have such a wine on hand.

regards

Ian

1. officially I use a spread sheet, but my collection is small enough that I actually know the contents off the top of my head.
2. have a complete knowledge of when things need to be drunk or when I intend to drink them, and easily stay on top of them all (easy to do with a small collection)
3. small wine fridge

Eli hi
here we go;
"1. Do you keep track of what's in your cellar?
If you do, what do you use? "
i use mainly Cellar Tracker but also i put it on Word on my computer and print it from time to time

"2. Do you know what in the bottom of the pile, or will those mature wines die of old age down there?"
well i know what i have but not sure what exactly is at the bottom but one thing i do know that whatever i put in the back and bottom is not to touch for the next 1-3 years, so i do have an ideai piu o meno

"3. what do you use for cellaring?"
wine fridge/cabinet with double deep racks holding up to aprox 170 btls, plus the wines for long term cellaring are in a prof winestorage warehouse 2 miles from my house

regards to all
-M

1. Excel, keeping track of the place on the shelf, drinking window, score and other details (the number of similar bottles in the cellar, the dates when similar bottles were consumed, etc.).

2. See 1.

3. Two wine fridges (for 200 and 100 bottles) with individual shelves.

Alek.

I have a wine cellar program that not only keeps track of every bottle (682 at present) but lets me enter when to drink info. and tracks that, too, with appropriate warnings when I am exceeding the dates I entered.
I have a wine room in my basement that is dedicated to wine storage only and has a Breezeaire unit for warm times of the year. Fortunately, the cooling unit is needed only about three months out of the year.
Moreover, you could blindfold me, tell me which bottle out of inventory you wanted and I could go directly to it and pull it from the shelving.
I know my cellar well.
Best, Jim

1. I do indeed keep close track of what is in my cellar. The program I use to keep track is one that was designed specially for me.

2. Ain't nothing going to die because I don't know where in the cellar it is.

3. I have a dedicated wine cellar, that with full commercial cooling and humidifying equipment. Also two wine refrigerators, those primarily for wines scheduled to be tasted in the next week, two or three.

As to keeping track, I suppose some might consider me compulsive. I gain enormous pleasure from time to time simply looking at the wines, laying hands gently on them, and deciding on the spur of the moment at times which one is calling my name most loudly for immediate consumption.

Best
Rogov

I gain enormous pleasure from time to time simply looking at the wines, laying hands gently on them, and deciding on the spur of the moment at times which one is calling my name most loudly for immediate consumption.

Exactly.
Best, Jim

[David M. Bueker]

I gain enormous pleasure from time to time simply looking at the wines, laying hands gently on them, and deciding on the spur of the moment at times which one is calling my name most loudly for immediate consumption.

Exactly.

Wine porn!

Hi Eli,

1.I keep track of my cellar primarily by CellarTracker. I double check my inventory both with my memory and with the nearly practicely useless Facebook app Wine Beagles.

2. I do know what is in the bottom of the pile, and I don't intend for anything to die of old age in any of my piles.

3. I Have a French style wine fridge and a very small "modern" style wine fridge in my flat in Israel. In the U.S.A. I have a basement/converted childhood "toy room" (that's what we called it in Korean)->wine room.

Best wishes,
E.Y.

I gain enormous pleasure from time to time simply looking at the wines, laying hands gently on them, and deciding on the spur of the moment at times which one is calling my name most loudly for immediate consumption.

Exactly.

Wine porn!

I think I have similar sensations and "callings" as I browse and organize my CellarTracker!!

- E.Y.

[David M. Bueker]

To seriously answer the questions:

I use CellarTracker. I know exactly what I have and at least the general spot where it is in my home cellar (or a small amount off site). I have only ever "lost" one bottle & that was found when I had to empty the cellar for home maintenance reasons.

My biggest issue is there are two spots in the cellar that require significant "deconstruction" of box piles to get to all the stuff. I have specifically put long-term agers in those locations.

The real biggest problem is that I keep buying.

hello,
I am using the free software RB Cellar tracker, it great to manage my cellar and it have a got filters to find which wine are soon to past their peak.
The wine are kept in the house dark basement (14-18C 70%), and i also like just to go down to the basement and just to pick a bottle that i would like to drink without even checking the recommended drinking window ...

1) Cellartracker
2) see 1
3) Eurocave plus spare room, plus ready rack in kitchen

1 - I have been collecting wine since before Windows existed, so I had the inventory on an old DOS program made for the wine collector. It was pretty good but last year it finally stopped being able to printout the inventory as printers that still recognized old DOS print commands seem to be no longer made. I was able to get a client that is a computer whiz to extract the data and also create a nice little Excel interface so that's what I now use. He even arranged it so that the total value is concealed unless you hit a secret button, in order to preserve domestic harmony.

2 - my cellar had two stages of accumulation. The first one was the orderly stage when I had the room to put all new acquisitions in a suitable spot, Bordeaux in one section, German wines in another etc. The second or chaotic stage was when I had to start stacking cases in whatever space was available, reorganizing to leave long agers on the bottom and current drinkers near the top maybe once a year. At that point, all domestic Canadian wines were relegated to an area outside the wine cellar, except for delicate whites. The laundry room now functions as an adjunct cellar but we don't call it that in consideration of the tender feelings of She-who-must-be-obeyed.

3 - I use a designated and dedicated room for the cellar, with a cooling unit built into the wall. It holds about 3500 bottles, and the rest are in the basement, which is relatively cool, but unregulated. The main cellar has rows of stacked milk crates (the sort that were built for the old square glass bottles) along the walls and a double depth set of plywood shelves down the centre. It also houses stacks of cases in front and in the corners, which can make finding specific bottles arduous even if not always challenging.

I do not use Cellartracker as I have no wish to spend the time entering more than 4000 bottles of wine into a new program, and the Excel based program does everything I require.

I keep detailed notebooks on the wines in my cellar ...My cellar has no wine fridges or temperature controls --but is naturally cool as it is in my condo locker 2 floors below ground level and in constant darkness except forthe occaisional few minutes each time when I turn on the lights to enter it and put in or take out wines...

1 - yes, I built an simple Excel database (a few macros) with a Dashboard that gives me in one page "real time" info about the wines I have, value and how many to drink this year. It is connected to a barcode reader, so anything that goes in or out is scanned and impact y inventory. simple and efficient.

2 - I know exactly where everything is located: by country and years.

3 - I was lucky enough to have a room in my basement that has a connstant temperature and humidity all year long. It can contain up to ~750 bottles, which is perfect size to my/my family/friends consumption.

GI

[Jenise]

I keep track of about 2000 bottles on Excel, and I can sort by country, grape or wine type (I differentiate between Bordeauxs and other Cabs, for instance, and within Bordeaux by commune since it's the largest constituent in my cellar) so yes I know what I have and almost precisely where it is (even without looking at the inventory) as I have a far better than average memory for ridiculous details about things I care deeply about. I plan to move to Cellar Tracker as soon as I get my inventory up to date. I've been saying that for over a year, btw.

I do not use Cellartracker as I have no wish to spend the time entering more than 4000 bottles of wine into a new program

Bill, you don't have 4000 different wines though, do you? Since most wines are already in CellarTracker its a whiz to enter them. And you can upload from Excel...

Bill, you don't have 4000 different wines though, do you? Since most wines are already in CellarTracker its a whiz to enter them. And you can upload from Excel...

No, closer to 1000 individual wines.

I have no wish to have private information on the internet in any form whatsoever, regardless of how secure it may be represented as being. I couldn't upload from my old program, but now that the data is in Excell I suppose I could upload, I just have no wish to do so.

Thank you all for 'sharing" \
I already thinking what will be the topic for our next "meeting".
It is also a good opportunity to learn a little about the people posting here.
Eli

I have no wish to have private information on the internet in any form whatsoever, regardless of how secure it may be represented as being.

Indeed, I know several people with major cellars who feel much the same. I am quietly waiting and dreading hearing about the first victim of the Internal Revenue Service or the English or Israeli equivalents. That has happened before with auctions, even though people were purchasing anonymously via second parties. It will happen with the net!!!

Best
Rogov

Indeed, I know several people with major cellars who feel much the same. I am quietly waiting and dreading hearing about the first victim of the Internal Revenue Service or the English or Israeli equivalents. That has happened before with auctions, even though people were purchasing anonymously via second parties. It will happen with the net!!!

Makes as much sense as these idiots that maintain a personal web page complete with pictures of all their possessions and home, and then post notices of their plans to be away for 3 weeks on holiday. Might as well leave a key under the mat.....