CT - Access Denied, you make me cry

Curious as to why more people don’t allow the contents of their cellars to be seen online in CT. What’s the big deal? It’s fun to peruse other cellars, especially when you find someone with a similar palate. We need more share bears.

I keep mine private because I do not want local friends seeing how much of a share I get of certain cherries. It prevents all kinds of trouble.

That said- I have on occasion gone browsing when reading TNs all over the map for a given wine and wondering what else those tasters are collecting and drinking that might explain such variances in TN experience.

One thing that really strikes me- in the cases where the cellar is viewable- is just how many people have 1 bottle each, maybe 2, of most of what they have. It is a difficult strategy for me to fathom.

Perhaps it makes sense in the context of the market, but my reaction to the higher prices and tougher allocations has been to dramatically shrink the number of different wines I buy so that I can keep getting 6-12 of each in most cases, much more for select vintages of certain wines like Magdelaine that I happen to favor. I grew up in a home where much emphasis was placed on the joy of seeing the same wine many times repeatedly as it evolved- and with an emphasis on midweight vintages versus the superstars- so maybe that is part of it. But from what I have seen on CT- having a bottle here and there of a much wider selection would appear to be the new normal.

Just sent you a friend request. You are welcome to view my cellar. I am one of those one or two bottlers with quite a few 3 to 6+. For me the decision on the quantity has to do with having a greater variety. I do understand your wish to secure a good quantity. I don’t buy many wines from direct allocation so taking two bottles is an easy option for me. Meanwhile, I’ll take a look at your cellar so to what goodies you have by the case.

I’m all about variety. Life is too short to keep drinking the same wine.

I’m sailing on this boat as well.

Agreed. I have tons of variety with most quantities in the 2 or 3 bottle count. It’s nice having access to almost any sort of wine for the right occasion. I could not afford or have the space to do that in case quantities.

+1

If you drink the way Tom does you don’t mind drinking the same wines.

Surely you are familiar with the ‘one-and-done’ phenomena in college sports? [thumbs-up.gif]

Yep. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Just did a quantity sort in CT. Basically half of my cellar is wines that were purchased in 6+ bottle lots. The other half is small lots. Often I was only offered 1 or 2 of a given wine. The other typical reason is that I wanted to limit a mailing list purchase to 6 or 12 bottles total, so I took 2 each of multiple wines. Normally I try to stick to 3 at a minimum, but sometimes the variety bug kicks in (e.g. most recent Sandlands offer, where my purchased case has no more than 2 of any given wine).

Back to the original topic, I keep private for a number of reasons, including to avoid comments, judgements, and assumptions. Lots of folks are simply curious and benevolent, but not everyone is. My cellar used to be public, and I had several incidents with people looking and commenting, sometimes publicly, in a way that made me uncomfortable.

Yeah, I could do without the whole comment thing, even on tasting notes. I write a note you disagree with: write your own. You don’t need to call me out because our palates disagree.

Re original question - the privacy controls (so far as I can tell) are not very granular. I don’t really want to have just anyone be able to see my full cellar for a variety of reasons, including value and extent. I’m not looking to “show it off”. I wouldn’t mind a setting that allowed someone to see that also have a bottle of X wine if that person was searching for “who else owns this” or simply price/store/etc. info. But I don’t think it’s possible to share things only in certain ways (and I’m not asking Eric to undertake what would probably be a really challenging task to do.)

As for 1s and 2s. I’d love to buy a case of everything I buy, but I have neither the money or space to do so. As my cellar has grown, outpacing my consumption (and probably outpacing even projected consumption as wines age) I’ve realized I can’t/shouldn’t buy even 6, or 4, or 3 of most wines and should settle for 1 or 2. Yeah, it’s disappointing if I really like the wine, but then I realize I have plenty of others to try and enjoy as well.

To me that’s improper use of the comment feature, not a reason to eliminate it.

Properly used the comments can help fill out a useful note.

I actually meant comments on online forums and at events, not on CT. I’ve never had issue with comments on my tasting notes, which I do sometimes make public.

And there are NEW vintages each and every year, which means even more to buy! Honestly, the pressures to BUY in this ‘hobby’ are immense: “have to buy cases”, “need to take my allocation”, “limited amount”…and on-and-on.

Curious as to why more people don’t allow the contents of their cellars to be seen online in CT. What’s the big deal? It’s fun to peruse other cellars, especially when you find someone with a similar palate. We need more share bears.

Interesting question. I would wonder exactly the opposite - why anybody would ever make their cellar public. It would never occur to me, unless someone wanted to show off to the people who cared about such things. But it’s kind of like anything else right? You don’t show off how many socks you have, or shoes or guns or books or whatever unless you get some kind of pleasure out of publicizing your possessions.

And then, as is happening in this thread, people question the purchases of other people. Doesn’t seem like it’s valuable information.

Maybe it’s just a personal thing though. People post all kinds of stuff on Facebook and elsewhere that some of us would never think of publicizing, and some folks make mini-careers out of doing it.

Different strokes I guess.

I’m of the opposite mindset as well. I use it for inventory purposes and to mine some data on what may or may not be drinking well. Why would everyone want to publicize what for many would be a multi $100 thousand asset and their location? Stealing the contents of a home wine cellar may not be easy logistically but a criminal could easily assume that same person might have other more easily stolen assets at their home. I don’t publicly use my name, location or cellar contents on CT.
The world has become public enough, feels good to keep a few things to oneself.

There is a very real security threat with having your cellar publicly accessible. Given many of us operate on real name forums, it doesn’t take too much research to work out who someone is and with a little more effort, where they live.

Having a list of potentially very valuable items online and leaving the dots out there for someone to join up is not that smart, in my opinion.