How do you decide where to place a new bottle in your wine rack?

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How do you decide where to place a new bottle in your w... - 1/28/2018 7:22:13 PM

DMcC

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Hi

I have recently built some wine racks to hold approx 300 bottles. I am now having fun buying new wines to fill the racks. I am struggling to come up with a good theme or layout plan for my collection.

Currently I divide my racks into 3 broad areas Drink "Now" "Medium" and "long" term storage. Roughly 60% now, 30% medium and 10% long. I then store wines vertically based on value. Highest value wines at the bottom, lowest value wines at the top.
Diagrammatically something like this

Would be interested in discussing / hearing other folk's approach to locating wine within their cellars please.

I am also toying with sticking small barcodes at the top of each vertical rack column with the idea of employing some sort of inventory control system.

Cheers
DMcC

< Message edited by DMcC -- 1/28/2018 7:25:22 PM >

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 7:48:14 PM

ChrisinCowiche

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I sort by color, then by bottle shape, then by variety, then by producer alphabetically.

My white and rose wines are in a frig named hank. Holds about 150 and now about half full. If I add a bottle I sorta stuff it somewhere near like bottles.

My red cellar, holds about 800, is rhone shaped bottles about half (mostly Syrah, then some Grenache, Mourvedre, blends) then about half Bordeaux bottles, (Cab, merlot, blends, etc..) another section for Pinot/Tempranillo/Zinfandel, which for me are smaller numbers, a dozen of each maybe.

When I add a bottle I try to add it to the correct variety and shuffle around to find room. I rely on Cellartracker to tell me which bottles are needing to be consumed or coming into drinking window. But mainly I go hunt for something in a variety or age range, and pick from what I generally know that I have, often "shopping" from my own cellar.

I've had this general system for 5-6 years, and it works horribly. I can never find anything, nor have anywhere to put new wine. Maybe somebody else will have a system that works.

< Message edited by ChrisinSunnyside -- 1/28/2018 7:54:04 PM >

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 8:02:54 PM

hankj

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I have areas dedicated to regions and sub regions. So for instance a French zone, divided into Burg, Bojo, S Rhone, N Rhone, etc. Sets of same wines/labels in bins, smaller quantities individually racked. I like this set up because I can visual see how well different areas are represented, and because it shows me the world of wine, and because it is similarly organized to a wine shop.

< Message edited by hankj -- 1/28/2018 8:03:27 PM >

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 8:15:46 PM

CranBurgundy

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I have a special program titled bytheseatofmypants.xlxs that I've been using for years. Any discrepancies are sorted by the whoaIstillhavethat subroutine and moved to the folder titled mustdrinkthissoon.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 9:20:30 PM

dontime

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I find an empty slot. If none are available, I drink something.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 9:34:19 PM

DMcC

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quote:

ORIGINAL: hankj

I have areas dedicated to regions and sub regions. So for instance a French zone, divided into Burg, Bojo, S Rhone, N Rhone, etc. Sets of same wines/labels in bins, smaller quantities individually racked. I like this set up because I can visual see how well different areas are represented, and because it shows me the world of wine, and because it is similarly organized to a wine shop.

Sounds like a good system Hankj

I guess it relies on having a lot of free cellar space.

Do you record the cellar location in Cellar Tracker?

I have been using the excel web query from cellar tracker and then using mail merge to print info on sticky labels that I then stick onto bottle neck tags.

I cut off the bottom corner of the sticker when the wine is in its drinking window.

The system is far from perfect.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 9:44:17 PM

mye

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In the beginning: by region.

Now: each time 12 come in I have 6 slots open. So it’s basicslly where ever possible. And drink asap...

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 9:54:06 PM

DMcC

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I have half considered adopting something like the Dewey classification system used in libraries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification

The issue is that it would need some sort of translator as its not very intuitive.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 10:06:56 PM

jmcmchi

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Overall approach is similar to Dontime's highly scientific description

One thought on the original question : 60% for short term drinking seems high. On your numbers it implies an average 6 months holding at one bottle per day, so each space is turned over only once even if you don't drink anything else. i would make it 30-40%

< Message edited by jmcmchi -- 1/28/2018 10:08:55 PM >

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 10:27:45 PM

forceberry

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dontime

I find an empty slot. If none are available, I drink something.

This.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/28/2018 10:43:31 PM

DMcC

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jmcmchi

Overall approach is similar to Dontime's highly scientific description

One thought on the original question : 60% for short term drinking seems high. On your numbers it implies an average 6 months holding at one bottle per day, so each space is turned over only once even if you don't drink anything else. i would make it 30-40%

Good observation jmcmchi
So drink now zone, could possibly be an absolute number rather than a % of total cellar size. Number based on drinking habits and defn of what drink now means. I like it.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 3:19:49 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dontime

I find an empty slot. If none are available, I drink something.

+1 ftw

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 3:33:25 AM

pclin

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No freaking idea whatsoever.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 4:07:05 AM

khmark7

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I struggle with inventory control....

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 4:42:45 AM

musedir

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dontime

I find an empty slot. If none are available, I drink something.

Order...order? We don’t need no stinkin’ Order! Quick there’s a slot, shove ‘er in there! After all, discovery is half the fun of looking a a bottle for dinner.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 4:45:11 AM

RedRedMoreRed

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I use the Location and Bin functions in CellerTracker and it works great. I've divided my storage so that with those two combinations, each bottle represents a seperate location. THe one exception is when I run out of room, i then utilize the name of the box as the "bin" so never have to look through more than 12 bottles to find it. And the ready to drink report controls the timing of consumption.

I have a spreadsheet that models the above storage so I can visually track where the open slots are for adding new purchases.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 5:43:37 AM

MaineMark

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Mine are sorted by the year I plan to drink them. The system is working very well for me.

When my wine arrives, I consult CT and pro tasting notes for drinking windows. If I bought a few bottles and it is a new wine to me, I might add one of the the bottles to this year, but others I place in future years based on the drinking windows, and what else I have in a given year.

I use the Notes section in CT to put in the year I plan to drink the wine. I can sort on Notes, so all of the bottles in a given drinking year are grouped together.

I have storage upstairs for bottles I plan to drink in the next year or two, and in the basement for longer-term holds. (stretching out 15-20 years.) I put a neck tag on a few of the bottles in each drinking year with the year written on it, so I can easily see where, for example, my 2022 bottles are.

I have only been using this system for a couple of years, but so far so good. I am storing bottles I want to store, and not forgetting about bottles I want to drink. Anything in the 2018 section is fair game now (and certainly a few stragglers from 2017), but anything tagged 2019 or later is off limits.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 7:36:00 AM

Pontac

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Trouble with keeping similar wines together so that over time they get fragmented then you buy 6 of a type and there aren't six holes together in the expected space.

To keep that system needs constant moving around of bottles.

I bought a set of small numbered stickers, numbered each slot and stick new wines in a free slot, then update CT with the bin number.

So, when I know what sort of wine I want - say a Claret, I go to Home,/My Cellar/Summarise by Region/Bordeaux and then sort by vintage. From there I choose a wine, the entry has the bin number, I get the wine and update CT as that bottle drunk.

I also print the barcode number on Avery labels and stick to bottle.

In rack in kitchen I keep a stock of 'drink' now and inexpensive wines I can grab, say if coming in late with a take-away, and for other household members to take when I'm not there in the hope they won't plunder my special bottles.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 7:40:16 AM

fingers

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My offsite locker currently has 700+ bottles, all in boxes with little rhyme or reason other than each box should have like wines therein. Days spent there qualify as weightlifting sessions.
At home, we have three wine fridges: a 30 bottle beverage cooler kept at 47f for ready-to-drink blancs and bubbles, a 56 bottle unit for blancs, and a 180 unit that is divided into sections, based on shape for Rhône/Pinot, Bdx, and slide out shelves to hold ports and oversized Champers and mags.

But to answer the OP, all new bottles go to offsite first

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 7:56:38 AM

BobMilton

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My cellar is also not very large (a little over 200 slots). Organized roughly by type. So there is a section for Cab (and Merlot and related Bordeaux varieties), one for Rhone reds, one for other reds (Zin, Pinot, Mablbec, etc), and one for whites (with a subsection for sparkling).

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 8:18:00 AM

Anthonyiez

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Laziness

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 9:16:30 AM

lockestep

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I have different racks for each of the major varietals in my cellar (Cab/Bordeaux and blends; Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; Syrah and Rhone blends; Riesling, Zinfandel and other.) Older bottles are stored at the bottom and newer at the top, and yeas I do a bit of bottle shuffling to keep blocks of wine together.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 9:51:18 AM

bretrooks

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For me, general drinking window is the primary sort criteria, which works because our collection is small (<150 bottles plus ~100 bottles from a 2014 barrel project) and scattered:

1. Near-term wines are filed in a furniture-type rack in the dining room (~24 bottles - red & dessert) or in a small rack in the refrigerator (~8 bottles - whites & rose).
2. Mid-term wines & some nicer short-term wines live in a small wine fridge (~30 bottles) or in insulated case boxes in the pantry (~24 bottles).
3. Long-term wines & unopened cases of barrel project wines live in an off-site storage locker.

For storage at our house, I rarely have more than half a dozen bottles of a type (which I generally think of as region+color) in one place, so it's easy to dynamically sort/peruse. In the off-site storage, I just have case boxes in storage labeled with general contents ("Burg," "Germany," Piedmont," etc.) with some spaces left in most. Other than the fact that I tend to spend more on ageworthy special-occasion bottles, I don't pay a huge amount of attention to cost post-purchase.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 10:09:15 AM

dsGris

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My racking is tending toward 1-3 bottles with larger numbers going into Wienboxes stacked on the floor. I tend to buy close outs of the wines I like to drink instead of 1-2 of this and that. When enough spaces open up, I will transfer into the racking. I use an Excel spreadsheet developed by Richard Sandler for a graphic layout; BDX, Spanish, Italian, Rhone, burgs, whites and dessert left to right.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 10:50:32 AM

wadcorp

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BobMilton

My cellar is also not very large (a little over 200 slots). Organized roughly by type. So there is a section for Cab (and Merlot and related Bordeaux varieties), one for Rhone reds, one for other reds (Zin, Pinot, Mablbec, etc), and one for whites (with a subsection for sparkling).

Pretty much my scheme.

A couple of columns for cabernet, one for zins, two for red blends, one for petite sirah, one for pinot noir, one for "stolen from the back of a UPS truck"…

.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 12:08:36 PM

forceberry

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I'd probably kill myself arranging bottles if I had to do it by the grape variety. According to CT there are approximately 90 different varietal wines in my cellar.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 1:14:44 PM

mclancy10006

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dontime

I find an empty slot. If none are available, I drink something.

THIS!

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 1:17:01 PM

Jenise

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I'm not you, so my advice is meaningless, but I'd take your diagram and shift it 90 degrees. Now long term holds are on the bottom--out of sight, out of mind--and drink now wines are at eye level.

Then, within the catgegory Drink Now, I would group them according to how you drink wine when you go for a bottle. Make a lot of Italian food? Group all the Italian wines. Summer sippers? In that corner. Big American reds for red meat binges? Under the sippers. Syrah your new favorite thing? Make a group. And so on. Think less about what the wine is and put your emphasis on how you'll peruse/retrieve. Because even if that's not how you think now, it will become how you think. And five years from now your groupings will be different than they are today as your fascinations shift and progress. That's why my own cellar (approximately 1800 bottles) is: the wall of whites, American cabs/blends, Bordeaux, Rhone, all pinots, Italy, Spain, zinfandel, new world syrah and Other. It's not grape, it's not geography, it's something in between that only makes sense to me. But for me, it makes perfect sense.

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 1:28:51 PM

WineGuyCO

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My Le Cache cellar has two doors and holds 286 bottles so:

Top left is Italian
Middle left is French Bordeaux and Burgundy
Bottom left is Syrah (Washington and California), GSM,

Top Right is California Cab
Middle right is California Cab
Bottom right is California Pinot Noir

Overflow goes into my 60 bottle Allavino cooler which is half full of white wine and now some newer 2014 and 2015 Syrah that I won't drink for a while. This cooler is also going to be overflow for my Cabs that are not my better ones (Grgich Hills, Chimney Rock). Working out so far.

Rick

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RE: How do you decide where to place a new bottle in yo... - 1/29/2018 2:00:19 PM

BobMilton

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quote:

ORIGINAL: wadcorp

quote:

ORIGINAL: BobMilton

My cellar is also not very large (a little over 200 slots). Organized roughly by type. So there is a section for Cab (and Merlot and related Bordeaux varieties), one for Rhone reds, one for other reds (Zin, Pinot, Mablbec, etc), and one for whites (with a subsection for sparkling).

Pretty much my scheme.

A couple of columns for cabernet, one for zins, two for red blends, one for petite sirah, one for pinot noir, one for "stolen from the back of a UPS truck"…

.