I do not mean this post to sound like bragging.
I forget many times which wines I own and even buy wines thinking I dont own it. Later to find out I do own it. Am I very forgetful? Is there a way some of you guys keep track of wines mentally? Is my memory bad? Am I alone in this?
You are not alone. I sometimes buy wine I already have because I didn’t remember a previous purchase. Others have remarked on the same phenomenon. It’s probably some ancient caveman/cavewoman hoarding instinct, nothing to worry about.
Just use CellarTracker. Then you don’t have to remember anything.
Absolutely!!!
There are times that I believe my wife could take a couple bottles out of the cellar, package them and ship them to me. I would open the box and just add them to the storage racks.
Have everything catalogued in my app so I know what I have, how much I paid each time I bought and where its stored.
I use CellarTracker, but sometimes I see a great price on a time-sensitive deal (e.g., Envoyer) and then realize after purchasing that it’s something I had previously bought before.
Yes! And I have done this at auctions as well. Where I see something near the end of the auction and buy buy buy! Then realized I bought it 2 other times.
I don’t remember.
SWI/SUI
I have the flip side of that problem. I buy four bottles of something, and i have a good memory of what the wine was like when I tried it–can even probably write a tasting note a year later, and figure I’ve had the wine perhaps twice. But when I go back to get the next bottle, I find that all four bottles have been consumed.
Yes
Definitely bought a bottle or two of something at one retailer, forgot about it while awaiting shipping window, and bought again from another retailer. Double the deliveries, double the fun!
I look at CellarTracker wayyyy too much to forget what I have, or to at least buy something without realizing I have it already.
Memory? No problem. Carrie bought me T-shirts with our address on them. Carrie knows where all the various wines are displayed, stored or hidden at the store. I can never find any of the special wines so I started moving the boxes of cigars around in the walk in humidor so she can’t smugly walk to where a requested cigar is.
Actually, a T-shirt with my address on it, and maybe my ATM PIN number on it would be extremely helpful.
Reading through this thread, I’ve thought - yes,yep, uh huh, yes I’ve done all that stuff. Except the humidor one, I didn’t really follow that.
Don’t worry be happy.
This thread is so perfectly timed. While reading it this morning I scoffed and thought “why can’t they use Cellar Tracker to manage their cellar like I do, it’s not rocket science to track inventory with it” Then I entered my purchases of the day and voila I just found out that I bought a wine I had already purchased a few months ago…
Except you have to remember to log every bottle into and out of inventory. Other than that, you don’t have to remember anything. 
[By the way, long time happy user of CT, myself. But it is a lot of work keeping up with it.]
This is only partly on topic, but what the hell.
I walk into Costco last year and pass by the subportion of the eyeglass section which has just regular sunglasses. I pause to look around, and find this pair of red Ray Ban glasses and kind of like them. I look at them for awhile, and decide what the hell, I’ll get them.
But just as I’m walking over to buy them, a strange feeling comes over me, that I’ve looked at these glasses before, and maybe even bought them. I start racking my brain. Maybe I bought them, but forgot to take them out of the bag or the box and they’re just lying around somewhere? Maybe they fell into a corner of my trunk or back seat or something?
I finally remember – I had come in several months earlier, bought these, but they didn’t have a new pair other than the display one, so they said I could pay for it and they’d call me later when they arrived. I did get a call, but it was while I was out of town and in the middle of something, so I had almost immediately forgotten about it. I walk up to the counter, and ask if they have a pair of glasses for me to pick up, and they hand them over to me, saying “boy, these have been sitting here a long time.”
Wine is a bit different. Having one more bottle of a good wine is not redundant the way two identical pairs of sunglasses would be. In fact, it’s nice to have multiples – it makes you less reluctant to open one if there is another one in storage.