Cellar Arranging - First world problem

[Teisto]

Hi all

Been a long time since I've posted anything although still avidly reading in the background!

Finally completing the renovation that needed to happen and have built a cellar with capacity for about 1500 bottles (already out of space before I fill it)

So I'm needing advice on how to load the bottles up - how do people do it - start with the oldest and go to new, separate whites / reds? Exclusive don't touch sections or a raft of drink now at the front so you aren't tempted at 2am in the morning to pull something off the shelf that you won't taste and regret opening in the morning?

Break down by variety? Group by region?

As you can see, way too many options but looking for a way that I can arrange now and as things deplete, replace without everything being all over the place and impossible to find

Thanks in advance

[phillisc]

Oh great topic, where to start and dozens on here will each have a story to tell, with one common theme, we would all like to have a better set up.
Due to not ever having any record keeping system apart from what's between my ears ( and becoming challenging as the years roll by), I rely on classification by regions and splitting red and white

All of the Australian states are split, and the small amount of OS stuff is in one spot. The bulk of the cellar is SA/VIC/NSW/WA reds and then the whites, (overwhelmingly Riesling, with a bit of Semillon and sparklers) are all in one spot along with a few stickies. Fortifieds are in the red section.

The initial issues are finding surprises within a box, as all my wines are in cartons, don't have the luxury of racks, or indeed finding whole dozens that are forgotten purchases. I used to be an a lot of mailers, but less than 10 now, so know roughly what I am buying, and the carton is a good identifier. Writing on the outside of the box, when bottles are removed also helps.

Cheers Craig

[mychurch]

Unless you intend to replace like for like as you drink up, I think any logical split of the cellar tends to get messed up over time. That of course gets rectified by the annual repacking exercise, where every bottle is taken out, inspected and then put back. The max I ever had at home was probably around 700 bottles, which would take a whole day to take out and put back.

Given you already have a lot, I’d sort by producer to begin with with the assumption that if you have a lot of one, then they are probably a favourite and so deserve prime spot in the cellar. Try that for a while and if you find it’s causing an issue, change everything when you eventually get around to the re-ordering.

[sjw_11]

I have never managed to have a system. Originally I had a section for "special bottles" which were usually individual buys and went into some Styrofoam racking while everything else got mixed around in boxes, but over time the mix of unbroken sixes, sixes with just one taken out, random buys stashed together etc ... has made it all into a mess. And my cellar is roughly full so I have to unpack a bunch of boxes to be able to get at everything else.

When I can finally get back to Adelaide it will be time for a massive clean out followed by a massive party (or several) and probably sending a few things to auction just to make funds for new acquisitions to get better balance in the cellar.

[Ian S]

Hi Teisto
Any plan is likely to get revised once you start getting movement in and out of the cellar. So think about how bottles normally arrive in and normally get taken out. Do you go looking for a specific bottle, or like browsing the shelves to see what takes you fancy?

FWIW my approach has become very simple:
- Bottles that warrant / demand cellaring go on the bottom of the shelving, with those that are in a good place for drinking are on top
- I put the bin into cellartracker, so that I know roughly where the bottle is when looking for it.

This generally has two issues:
1. New purchases need to ideally go below other bottles, but I tend not to do this on arrival, but try to gravitate them down as I take other bottles out
2. A combination of laxness in updating cellartracker, plus the above not being that effective, means I do a cellar audit every ~ 2 years. As well as correcting the entries in cellartracker, it allows me to re-establish the general order.

If you have single slots for every wine, then this eases matters, but you may still find it more flexible to simply accurately record the location of every wine, and rely on that in cellartracker to pinpoint each wine. If you do so, it doesn't matter how they are organised... which you'll appreciate when a couple of cases arrive and need to be put away in a hurry.

Regards
Ian

[brodie]

I organize by region and then oldest to youngest. i have designated areas in the cellar for each region. The cellar is fully racked and has a lot of extra space (more racking than bottles). I start in the top left hand corner in each region’s area with my oldest bottle and then work down and then across the rows.

I do an annual restack to “close up the gaps” that develop as wines are taken out. I have planned empty buffer space at the end of each region. This empty space is where the next vintage and new releases for that region go. So there is planned room for growth within each region.

I like having the wine sorted by region; when I go into the cellar to find a bottle of (say) Champagne, I go to the Champagne section and enjoy looking at the selection and seeing which one one appeals to me at that moment.

Each to his own, but this set up has worked for me very well

Brodie

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[Mike Hawkins]

I have multiple offsite storage systems and a few wine fridges. I just use cellar tracker to record which box/shelf/location/country the wine is in. That way I can go straight to the wine I want… on the condition that I’ve kept things up to date…

[Wayno]

I try and arrange by producer and/or country (eg. I have all Italians in one area) and slant towards longer term at bottom and earlier drinking nearer the top (every bit of temperature advantage helps I figure…)

[kaos]

I have a section for each of shiraz, cabernet/bordeaux blends, Riesling, chardonnay, pinor noir and a smaller on for semillon. Then I have verticals (columns) by vintage. Some require two columns or even three. Regardless of provenance. So if I am looking for a specific bottle I just go the grape and the year and look. If I am browsing for inspiration I often start at oldest end. I also have a large section for 'everything else,' which has columns for grape. Some get more than one column - eg sangiovese.

[Teisto]

Thanks all for the advice. Great Cellar Brodie.

I'm coming from a situation similar to Mike's with storage offsite in boxes and tracked in a spreadsheet. Given I've got a number of areas I think I'm just going to split out by varieties and white section, put a bunch of quaffers at the front and put the longer term cellaring down the bottom and group varieties

Given being out of space I will box the newer stuff that won't see the light of day for a while and record that. Like some of you will need to do a bit of a clean out I think at some point.

[daver6]

Like Mike has done, I use CellarTracker to keep an up to date list of what's in my cellar and where it is. I don't need to worry about sections and shuffling bottles around. I also use wine tags to make finding a bottle easier.

When I want to drink something, I log on to CellarTracker, figure out what I want and then I know where to find it.

[JamieBahrain]

I use regions and boxes for 3500 bottles. I’m a visual bloke. Not perfect so will follow the thread for ideas.

[phillisc]

Gee Brodie, thought I had issues
Cheers Craig

[Mahmoud Ali]

I have never managed to have a system. Originally I had a section for "special bottles" which were usually individual buys and went into some Styrofoam racking while everything else got mixed around in boxes, but over time the mix of unbroken sixes, sixes with just one taken out, random buys stashed together etc ... has made it all into a mess. And my cellar is roughly full so I have to unpack a bunch of boxes to be able to get at everything else.

Without putting too fine a point on it you could be describing my cellar. I am happy just to be able to fill a box with a like-minded companions, and then hope that the bottles will fit in the box. A long time ago I refused to buy a Suckfizzle Cabernet because of its alarmingly long neck and bottle - where would it fit!

[Ian S]

I've not used it myself, but CT does have a bar-coding feature, allowing you to apply a bar code label to every wine going in, and perhaps most usefully, simply swipe the barcode when opened to remove it from the collection.

Always felt like too much effort to me!

[Waiters Friend]

G'day

The cellar has hit 3000, is full, and I am trying to stop buying wine. An affliction which I suspect impacts on many on this forum.

90% of my wines are Australian, so those are stored (in single bottle racking) by variety or wine style, then from oldest (at the bottom) to youngest.

This gets interesting when considering the multitude of cabernet blends around, so separate sections for cabernet merlot, cabernet malbec, cabernet shiraz and cabernet blends that have more than three varieties. Messy?

Separate areas again for vintage ports and dessert wines. Champagne is separate from the few Australian sparkling whites remaining, and bubbly red separate again. All oldest to youngest unless NV. Other varieties, like Mourvedre / Mataro, Tempranillo, Durif, Petit Verdot, etc, are all in smaller quantities (no more than a couple of dozen of each), and separated again.

The other 10% is French (mostly reds) and Italian (again, almost all red). For these, I have not differentiated by region or grape variety, as when you're only looking through 100 bottles or so, it's not an issue. Again, all stored oldest (lower) to youngest, so I am not disturbing the older bottles when rearranging / filling the gaps in the younger ones.

Hope this helps.

Allan

[grapeobserver]

I've not used it myself, but CT does have a bar-coding feature, allowing you to apply a bar code label to every wine going in, and perhaps most usefully, simply swipe the barcode when opened to remove it from the collection.

Always felt like too much effort to me!

I’ve also wondered whether this barcode/cellartracker system might be a solution. Anyone gone to the trouble of implementing?

[GraemeG]

I've not used it myself, but CT does have a bar-coding feature, allowing you to apply a bar code label to every wine going in, and perhaps most usefully, simply swipe the barcode when opened to remove it from the collection.

Always felt like too much effort to me!

I’ve also wondered whether this barcode/cellartracker system might be a solution. Anyone gone to the trouble of implementing?

It's probably overkill for home, unless you're pandering to a ultra-geeky sort of kink, but I'd imagine it would be extremely useful for a restaurant.
Although there are probably commercial packages in the trade; same way to manage inventory of other things.

Although a friend of mine, in the NSW lockdown for some months with a few other adult family members, seemed to be going through two cases of wine a week, so it might save some record-keeping in that situation!

[Michael McNally]

Hi Teisto

Like others I can highly recommend Cellartracker. I have my electronic cellar divided into three sections: In Cartons, Cellar, and Drink Now.

The physical cellar is four large racks (216 bottles each) bolted to the walls with space underneath and along the back wall for stacking cartons. One quarter of my racking (the rack on the right hand side closest to the door) is the 'Drink Now' section. the other three racks are the 'Cellar' section and then there are cartons (curreently creeping from the back wall towards the door.) I have about 1,600 bottles in total. I usually take wines from the Drink Now section and occassionaly from the Cellar.

The wines in the racks are arranged in the alphabetical and year order that Cellartracker keeps them so I can find them/check them off easily. I don't separate on colour, region, vintage or anything like that - Cellartracker provides me with the list of what's in Drink Now, what's in Cellar and what's in Cartons.

Every 6 months or so I print out the three lists and do a stocktake - usually takes a couple of hours to check and record bottles I haven't recorded as I have drunk them (though I am getting better at keeping that up to date). I then fill the Drink Now wall with wines from the Cellar and from Cartons, then fill the Cellar section from Cartons. By looking at all three lists together I can see what I want/need to move up the drinking chain. The whole process probbly takes 4-5 hours, but is always fun. It is very simple in Cellartrcker to check a large number of bottles and move them to a new section.

The quality and age of my drink now wines has steadily increased through this process. Obviously if I buy wines that are ready to drink now they go straight into that section when I enter the purchase.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Cheers

Michael

[WAwineguy]

G'day

The cellar has hit 3000, is full, and I am trying to stop buying wine. An affliction which I suspect impacts on many on this forum.


Allan

Sounds like a great cellar Allan - don't suppose you would share a photo or two of this treasure chest?

[sjw_11]

I find that by keeping my wines in cellar tracker and then having discipline to make a note on every wine drunk (even if very short like "no formal notes, good value") that helps to make sure I remove things ... not a perfect system but it does help.

[Ian S]

I find that by keeping my wines in cellar tracker and then having discipline to make a note on every wine drunk (even if very short like "no formal notes, good value") that helps to make sure I remove things ... not a perfect system but it does help.

Yes the discipline of making a note, even a short one, is a brilliant discipline for checking wines out of the collection

[Michael McNally]

I find that by keeping my wines in cellar tracker and then having discipline to make a note on every wine drunk (even if very short like "no formal notes, good value") that helps to make sure I remove things ... not a perfect system but it does help.

Yes the discipline of making a note, even a short one, is a brilliant discipline for checking wines out of the collection

Okay - I now have a new year's resolution. I usually use Notes on my iPhone and add a picture of the bottle. I then have to email the note to myself toy make it available for posting here or on Cellartracker. Means I don't always get round to it. What i need to do is write the actual note into Cellartracker and copy/paste into Notes.

Unless someone has a better solution?

Cheers!

Michael

[MattD]

Really interesting thread. I’ve just moved to a new house with a cellar so have been grappling with how best to organise. I previously had a wine fridge at home and then offsite storage. The new cellar has 12 rack sections (108 bottle each) and as my collection is 90% Australian I thought it easiest to split by varietal. Have a Pinot rack (also grouped in Gamays and lighter Grenache), a couple of Cabernet/Bordeaux grape racks, Shiraz rack, other Rhone red grapes rack, all other reds rack, a Rose and Orange wine (mainly Ruggabellus) rack, a Chardonnay rack, other white rack and then desert wine and sparkling. All tracked by Cellartracker which is a great tool and I must get into the above mentioned habit of writing at least a short note each time. The varietal split is working for now but I’ve not brought all the wine over from offsite storage yet so will have to see if it continues to work as it gets closer to capacity. And my growing Piedmont habit may need its own sections, but that may need to stay in the offsite to keep my hands off it!

Cheers
Matt

[asajoseph]

I've started using an app called Vinocell. Seems quite flexible and a huge amount of configurability (much of which you can ignore if you want).

Bit of a pain setting it up, but once everything's in there, I've found it incredibly easy to use to keep track of what's where in the cellar. I have about 300 bottles stored at home (increasing to about 700-800 next year), and even with that much I find that maintaining any kind of system is basically impossible with outgoings and (mostly) incomings - you can't rearrange things every time you buy something new, so these days I just put bottles where I have space and then record it on the app. I'd love it if it were connected to CellarTracker somehow, but hey, you can't have it all.

I probably wouldn't have the patience to input more than a few hundred bottles though, so may not be useful for anyone who doesn't have a lot of time to kill in the cellar!

[asajoseph]

On an unrelated note, I've become quite alarmed by the amount of humidity in my cellar over the last few months. Lots of mould and condensation on the bottles. So I've now got my cooler running on de-humidify mode, and moisture traps in the room - but have just started the process of wrapping bottles in cling wrap.

That's the weekend's activities sorted...