Before there was Cellar Tracker...

Came across my old 3x5 index card tasting note box! When I first started out into wine(early 90’s) I use to do my tasting notes on these cards! Couple things…never had a Burgundy, but it was a descriptor for me! Yes I read Spectator. How did I write so tiny? And…yes…my scores were too high!
Praise Cellar Tracker!

I only really started in wine around 2009 and kept everything in Excel. It was not updated frequently enough so when I started CT, I started from scratch rather than trying to import.

WOW that’s a pain in the ass! That’s true commitment to the art - bravo!

That is crazy.

Love this! Old school rotary-dial shite!

Where’s the graph paper with data points plotted?

70 pts!? THat’s dumpster fire score for buzz!!!

Mighty cool. Thanks for posting!

That’s great to see - real dedication to the hobby!

We need a ‘like’ button for post like this.

I wish I had kept records of wines I consumed between 1995 to 2011.

Wonderful post Buzz. I’d definitely “like” this (and that would be the first time I have ever “liked” anything".

I also kept tasting notes on three by five index cards when I started (about 10 years before I had a home computer). I stopped after filling half a box because it didn’t seem that it was going to scale very well.

-Al

I have an entire 3’ shelf with notebooks of labels and TNs from the 1980s and 90s. I showed a Burgundy geek friend my Burgundy notebook. At the end, he said, “If you still had these bottles today, you’d be rich.” Lot’s of 69 DRC (at a local restaurant for ~$60), lots of 1978’s. The whole idea didn’t work too well because it was a lot of work to take off many of the labels, so I would get behind. I still have a sizeable box of labels from the last time I did a major soaking (c. 1999). Then I got a digital camera and stopped soaking.

I got my first PC in 1984 and started using Lotus 1-2-3 to keep track of my cellar. For you youngin’s, Lotus 1-2-3 was the first major spreadsheet program for PC’s. I eventually converted them to Excel. I think I still have them on my computer.

I also started soaking off labels and abandoned that project about as quickly as the 3x5 note cards. That was definitely a pain.

-Al

I must admit that such ‘tactile’ systems still have some appeal, and interesting that your system matches CT in holding TNs, scores (both personal and professional) and price paid. It doesn’t seem to cover inventory though? I would have been tempted to do that with a # of bottles marked that I see go down as the TNs get added.

Never going to revert from CT though!

I love this - thanks for sharing!

I’m sure you all saw Francois Audoze’s empty bottle warehouse photo, right?

It’s interesting that all those notes I took back then are on only reds! Not one note on a white wine in that box? And now, I drink and take more notes on whites than I do reds!

Thread of the year

I wish I had done the same.

The first, and also the standard for some time.

I started with a notebook and just tasting notes, then Excel, which was more inventory, then CT. I think the ease of CT is to blame for my massive subsequent expansion of purchases. That, or the bigger cellar I built.

I better check Commerce Corner to see if I can find any of that delicious-sounding '91 Mayacamas Cab.