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Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 5:56:30 AM   
mutwonmax

 

Posts: 30
Joined: 1/27/2024
Status: offline 		First of all: Hi everyone, Im new here, thanks for having me..

To business: Im looking for some advice on how to sort the wine in my cellar. I have bordeaux from various vintages, namely:

A few single bottles from various châteaux and vintages from before 2016
A larger chunk of bottles from quite a few châteaux of 2016 (mostly three bottles per château)
Some bottles from a few châteaux from 2018, 19 and 20
And i am expecting fairly big chunk of bottles from 2022 vintage.

My shelf space is sufficient, with some extra space available to be kept free for future acquisitions, however its not abundant/endless.

I have contemplated separating by vintages, i.e. some space for bottles from before 2016, and then by vintage 2016 - 2022. (Drawback: I have some châteaux of which I have several vintages, and somehow i would think it neat, to have those bottles placed together)

Other option: I sort by château, alphabetically. Drawback: Im bound to run into numerous rearrangements, because i will lack free space in between for whichever château i might add in the future. (So thats actually not a real option, because i dont want to disturb the wine too much).

I sort by appellation, then chateaux but not alphabetically. I still might run into lack of space for newer vintages, wont I?

The more I write here, the more it seems that the first option is the best, despite not having the various vintages of 1 château placed together. (Perhaps it would be good to put up a notice next those bottles of which other vintages exist. Also theres really not much order, if I sort only by vintage, is there?

What are your thoughts about this? Maybe you have some insight to share of which I haven't thought yet? Feel free to share in which order you store your wine!

Also what do you think of storing only one bottle of a wine in the shelf and the other bottles of the same wine in a box below? I wouldnt put a lid on the box, still I have read somewhere that bottles should be placed so that the air can circulate around them, ...

Post #: 1
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 6:05:26 AM   
cigar52

 

Posts: 345
Joined: 8/15/2013
From: California... now Sarasota, FL
Status: offline 		Knowing that wine collections tend to be an ever expanding hobby I would recommend figuring a name (number) for each space and logging in each bottle with a corresponding location. Let the computer sort their style, etc while not having to move to keep up what can be a fun past.time.

One of our cellars (largest) is numbered 1-21 row and a-m column (with front as f and back as a b in our double stacked celler). With printed labels it make our accounting easy. Also great for not losing wine due to going past prime.

Good luck.

(in reply to mutwonmax)
Post #: 2
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 6:54:32 AM   
wine247365

 

Posts: 1012
Joined: 5/1/2012
From: OC, CA
Status: offline 		If you’ll continue your wine hobby for years, I wouldn’t get too hung up on finding the perfect way to initially load wines as over time you’ll end up putting bottles wherever there’s an open spot, which means your perfect starting point will become massively jumbled over time. This is where the Ready to Drink report becomes a life saver (or wine saver). Also, check out the Restaurant style report under, Quick Links, then Show Reports.

If you end up numbering the rows or columns be sure to label the rows as 01, 02, 03, etc. If you ever export your data to Excel you’ll find out why this makes sense.

_____________________________

The number of bottles I buy is nothing in comparison to the bottles I don’t buy. Let’s have a little perspective please.

(in reply to mutwonmax)
Post #: 3
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 7:22:51 AM   
Ibetian

 

Posts: 3576
Joined: 7/15/2007
From: Sarasota, FL and the Berkshires
Status: offline 		Get bottle tags and put one on each bottle.

_____________________________

“I was a glutton at the banquet and spilt the finest wine,” Mick Jagger, Wandering Spirit

(in reply to wine247365)
Post #: 4
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 8:24:58 AM   
eyewino

 

Posts: 370
Joined: 8/29/2018
From: Northern Iowa
Status: offline 		I will second the thought that any system you devise now will likely get changed at some point in the future. You will also probably run out if space, if you are anything like most of us here.

How about putting left bank bordeaux on the left of your cellar and right bank on the right?

_____________________________

-Don

In Vino Veritas

(in reply to Ibetian)
Post #: 5
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 12:44:25 PM   
mutwonmax

 

Posts: 30
Joined: 1/27/2024
Status: offline 		So.. thanks for the feedback.

Yes it sounds plausible, that any physical sorting system will fail at some point or other. So having read your comments, I have abandoned aiming for perfection. Thats already helpful as I have now decided to simply sort by country and larger region (i.e bordeaux, rioja and the likes) and and then roughly by vintage) and perhaps also very roughly by value (like first 2 rows from bottom for the most precious bottles). I have my cellar on cellar tracker (more or less) but I feel I really need to go down into my cellar to choose a wine. Choosing the bottle from my database doesn't appeal to me at least when I imagine it now. But who knows, maybe Ill also change my mind on that. Ill try to make for some empty reserve spaces in the shelves by putting several bottles of a kind into cases.

It's quite possible I might run out of storing space at some point or other. On the other hand, if I exagerate too much i might find myself being told off to live down there, which in turn might again reduce the number of bottles in store,.. so there is at least some hope for some kind of self regulation :-)

Thanks for all the advice on labelling. I will keep that in mind. Ill definately put up some notices besides the bottles. And it would really be a shame to miss bottles before they are past their lifespan. So maybe Ill yet become a fan of the database solution...

On that note I recently stumbled across a bottle "petite eglise" from 2000 which probably should be opened fairly soon... ;-)

Meanwhile thanks to all of you for your thoughts.

@wine247365: The "one sip better be sure" quote is really a nice one! I loved that!

< Message edited by mutwonmax -- 1/29/2024 12:53:58 PM >

(in reply to eyewino)
Post #: 6
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 4:30:51 PM   
ImUrHuckleberry

 

Posts: 678
Joined: 11/17/2018
Status: offline 		I'm with whoever said log by location and use the computer to sort it out. Then you never have to worry about reorganizing your cellar.

(in reply to mutwonmax)
Post #: 7
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/29/2024 6:33:47 PM   
KPB

 

Posts: 4658
Joined: 11/25/2012
From: Ithaca, New York
Status: offline 		My approach is by region. I have a cellar with capacity for a little more than 1000 bottles that roughly splits into ten sections of about 100 storage slots each, no real temperature variations from place to place in it. So I have a section for vintage port, one for white and rose wines, one for red Bordeaux, then two for Southern Rhône, Spain and South America, Italy, Northern Rhône and Rhône rangers, and two for California. Then a few red burgundy with the red Bordeaux, a few Zinfandels and Oregon PN in a spot by themselves.

Full owc are on some shelving. I have a few bottles of cognac and calvados there too (they have to stand on end).

Within each section I have little storage columns four bottles high. Small numbers of bottles of a wine from a single vintage and producer get a single column. More bottles spreads to multiple columns. I group producers, so all my Pegau is in one area, etc.

Really easy to find anything I need!

_____________________________

Ken Birman
The Professor of Brettology

(in reply to ImUrHuckleberry)
Post #: 8
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/30/2024 6:14:33 AM   
BobInNH

 

Posts: 60
Joined: 4/9/2022
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Ibetian
Get bottle tags and put one on each bottle.


I second this. I use CT and in the BIN spot put a code. The code starts with a descriptor of the winery/chateau. I tend to have at least a dozen wines from each producer. I then use odd numbers for whites and even numbers for reds. So, an Austin Hope cab could be AH10. I usually look at my printout to select the wine and I still need the printout to find the wine but it's made organization much easier.

(in reply to Ibetian)
Post #: 9
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/30/2024 10:12:22 AM   
ChrisinCowiche

 

Posts: 7845
Joined: 12/16/2009
From: Cowiche, WA
Status: offline 		Welcome to the forum mutwonmax, interesting handle!

My best advise is to go with your first instinct, try it in the physical cellar for a while, pulling bottles to drink, adding new purchases, then adjust to what might work better FOR YOU.

I'm a more visual person also, and a) don't look at CT before deciding on a wine to drink and b) don't use a strongly rigid numbering system in my cellar. I tried the neck tags once, and I never got it completed ~800 bottles at the time, and abandoned it before even one cycle of updates. It took me probably 5 years and 3-4 iterations of different systems to reach what I attempt to do now. I sort generally by variety then producer, then vintage, but your system of vintage being a primary sort does make some sense if you have space to add new vintages, 2023, 24, etc... and know where to find the producers in each vintage.

Again, my advice is to set it up initially, then tweak it however it makes sense to you.

Another comment, when you run out of space, every system falls apart. I'm in that situation now with no end in sight.

_____________________________

http://www.cellartracker.com/new/user.asp?iUserOverride=102173

(in reply to mutwonmax)
Post #: 10
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/30/2024 11:13:34 AM   
mutwonmax

 

Posts: 30
Joined: 1/27/2024
Status: offline 		Oh well the handle,.. it should read mutownmax. So its a typo. I thought about reregistering, once I noticed it. But then I thought it could be kinda adequate considering this is a wine forum ;-)

Thanks for the reassurance. Im glad for all the answers because they come down to dont try too hard to make it perfect from the beginning.

< Message edited by mutwonmax -- 1/30/2024 11:16:48 AM >

(in reply to ChrisinCowiche)
Post #: 11
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/30/2024 12:10:03 PM   
skifree

 

Posts: 3412
Joined: 3/14/2010
From: SE King County, Washington
Status: offline 		The only thing I will add to your plan is to separate out the dry whites, sweet whites, rose, and champagne from the reds. I never know which wine I will pick when I go down to my cellar, but I do know what type of wine I am looking for - for example, looking for a champagne or a Sauternes instead of a red.

Have fun experimenting!

_____________________________

So much wine, so little time

(in reply to mutwonmax)
Post #: 12
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 1/30/2024 2:03:28 PM   
Jenise

 

Posts: 1324
Joined: 3/20/2013
From: The Pacific Northest Westest
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: mutwonmax

Thanks for the reassurance. Im glad for all the answers because they come down to dont try too hard to make it perfect from the beginning.


As everyone has said, your needs will change as your fascinations diverge. My system's based on retrieval (generally for food pairing). To me Bordeaux and New World Cabs/blends are not interchangeable so they are separate, but pinots are more interchangeable so they all live together. I group by Chateau only when I have an awful lot of one producer. None of which would make sense to anyone else--point is, it doesn't have to be all way or all the other! There's no one right way unless you are driven to be that anal (obviously, I'm not!) and as everyone else pointed out already you'll change your mind as you go along.

(in reply to mutwonmax)
Post #: 13
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 2/1/2024 6:00:29 PM   
asajoseph

 

Posts: 374
Joined: 11/20/2013
From: Sydney, Australia
Status: offline 		Just finished another restack of my home cellar - got a new fridge, some new racking & furniture, so chucked away some old shelves and have re-sorted what I have.

A few thoughts...

The importance of precision here is largely driven by your ability to physically locate what you're looking for in the racks / bins that you have. For example, if (like me) you have a few medium-sized racks holding ~100 bottles each, I'm pretty confident I can find what I'm looking for by:
1. Keeping a record of the specific rack that a wine is in in Cellartracker;
2. Organising each rank along fairly broad parameters (I have country, grape variety, and occasionally resgion), but then;
3. Using detachable neck-labels to do the rest

Generally the more complicated your CellarTracker bin system is, or the more precisely you try to organise things, the more often you're going to need to re-stack, and the more likely you're just going to lose things (see also: I Suck at CT...).

If you're acquisitive - like most here are - your system will look great on Day 1, but by the end of Month 1 I guarantee you'll have had to do your first re-stack - especially if you're event remotely constrained by bin-space.

All of that being said - if your racking / bins rely on bottles physically resting on each other (e.g. on Wine Fridge shelves), you really do need to be precise in recording where something is. I have no desire to sit with my fridge door open at this time of year trying to pull random bottles off shelves to work out if something is where I remember.

Remember: it's a cellar, not a store - I don't often find myself pulling bottles out to just browse, and I wouldn't want my guests doing that either. Rather, impress your guests with a nicely bound copy of the 'Restaurant-Style Wine List' that CellarTracker will helpfully print for you.

So, my advice is - don't overthink it, and just make sure it serves its core purpose - that you can quickly find what you want, when you want it.

_____________________________

I love all the B's: Bordeaux, Barolo, Burgundy, and Bloody good Shiraz!

My Cellar

(in reply to Jenise)
Post #: 14
RE: Storing system, some advice please - 2/1/2024 6:08:15 PM   
wine247365

 

Posts: 1012
Joined: 5/1/2012
From: OC, CA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: asajoseph

Just finished another restack of my home cellar - got a new fridge, some new racking & furniture, so chucked away some old shelves and have re-sorted what I have.

A few thoughts...

The importance of precision here is largely driven by your ability to physically locate what you're looking for in the racks / bins that you have. For example, if (like me) you have a few medium-sized racks holding ~100 bottles each, I'm pretty confident I can find what I'm looking for by:
1. Keeping a record of the specific rack that a wine is in in Cellartracker;
2. Organising each rank along fairly broad parameters (I have country, grape variety, and occasionally resgion), but then;
3. Using detachable neck-labels to do the rest

Generally the more complicated your CellarTracker bin system is, or the more precisely you try to organise things, the more often you're going to need to re-stack, and the more likely you're just going to lose things (see also: I Suck at CT...).

If you're acquisitive - like most here are - your system will look great on Day 1, but by the end of Month 1 I guarantee you'll have had to do your first re-stack - especially if you're event remotely constrained by bin-space.

All of that being said - if your racking / bins rely on bottles physically resting on each other (e.g. on Wine Fridge shelves), you really do need to be precise in recording where something is. I have no desire to sit with my fridge door open at this time of year trying to pull random bottles off shelves to work out if something is where I remember.

Remember: it's a cellar, not a store - I don't often find myself pulling bottles out to just browse, and I wouldn't want my guests doing that either. Rather, impress your guests with a nicely bound copy of the 'Restaurant-Style Wine List' that CellarTracker will helpfully print for you.

So, my advice is - don't overthink it, and just make sure it serves its core purpose - that you can quickly find what you want, when you want it.


With all due respect, search for wines via the many tools CT has! Make the leap to the digital world! Guarantee you won't regret it!

_____________________________

The number of bottles I buy is nothing in comparison to the bottles I don’t buy. Let’s have a little perspective please.

(in reply to asajoseph)
Post #: 15
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