To really get to know and love your wine collection, a computer is essential.  Vinote Cellar provides the most comprehensive cellar and wine inventory system available.

By typing in one element of the label, such as the barcode (which can be scanned if you have a scanner), winery or brand, the program will show you all similar wines held in the database.  You select the wine you are entering from the list presented or, if no specific match is shown, you choose a similar one and edit the details.  Depending on your interest, you can add the present value of the wine, the price you paid and where you purchased it.

You can enter the year you wish to hold the wine until, the prime year for drinking it and the year by which it should be opened. 

For example, a 2009 Riesling won’t be opened before 2011, you believe it will be at its best in 2015, but it should be opened before 2020. This way you learn to make the most of your wines and not squander your investment by drinking too soon or too late.

Many cellarers find these choices difficult to apply, but the dates you choose can be changed and they do help you to get to know your wines.  In many cases you can use information entered by other cellarers to guide you, although you must modify these if you disagree. 

As your expertise in cellaring grows, so will your confidence in naming the appropriate years.

Having completed the wine details, you enter the number of bottles to be stored, and then the rack, or area, in which they are to go.  We recommend that to make it easier to find a wine, you divide your cellar up into nominal locations of 50 to 100 bottles in each location.

Next you can elect to use the Vinote tagging system or to allocate a specific space for each bottle.

The advantage of using Vinote tags is that you will quickly find your chosen bottle, selected from your cellar list, by seeking out the 3 digit number within a rack. You will retain the tag as a reminder to remove the wine from the database at a later time. 

Using the X and Y spaces within a rack appears to be a good exercise but, compared to tagging, there are two negatives.  You will often forget to remove the wine from your database and when you pull a bottle out and then inadvertently move it from one space to another, the system will “lose” it. 

There is one thing worse than not having a list of your cellared wines and that is having an inaccurate list, which you will ultimately stop trusting.  You cannot continue to love something you don’t trust!