barcode scanning or other ways to keep track of bottles??

WINE TALK
1

I’ve read some threads on the CT discussion lists as well as here. I’m wondering what people do that use CT to keep track of bottles removed from their cellar.

The dymo labels generate by CT seem to be an extra step that isn’t worth the time.

It seems like the most efficient would be to enter new wines on CT and, when removing them, do something as simple as taking a picture of the bottle with one’s phone to record what bottle was removed when.

FWIW, I have between 900-1000 bottles. I would think that the method for keeping track would depend on how many bottles one has. For those with more than I, perhaps the labels and scanner would be best.

I also looked at the dymo labels generated by CT and then scanning with Cork.z.

Thoughts?

2

The CellarTracker method of barcoding deals with the fact that many bottles do not have UPC/EAN codes, and those codes are ambiguous at best (as to vintage and even as to wine from a given producer).

CellarTracker has both per-bottle and per-wine barcodes. You print your own. This FORCES you to reconcile your inventory. That is the whole point of the exercise actually.

If you have multiple bottles of the same wine and/or have bought these from different sources, the per-bottle barcodes are the only way to disambiguate these and tie a specific bottle to a specific purchase.

Perhaps that is overkill for people just trying to track a casual list. For me, it is the single most useful feature of the site. 10 years. 7,000 personal bottles. Two bottles that were consumed without being checked out. A pretty good track record. All made possible by the rigidity forced by the barcodes.

3

If you’re going to do a full inventory (without which, tracking this kind of thing is pointless anyway), printing and applying labels isn’t a lot more work. I think it’s worth it. Though I will admit to not being as fastidious as I should be about keeping things in sync. Mostly because I find scanning with the phone apps to be too slow/cumbersome when I’m pulling bottles out to share with friends or something, and I don’t have a computer in the room the wine is in. My scanner does have internal memory so I could theoretically scan bottles with it and then load them into the computer later, but half the time the battery is dead. So I still end up having a lot of inventory discrepancies. But in my case the impact is pretty small. Most of my wine is in offsite storage, and I do keep good track of what I move from offsite to my home wine fridge. So I just have to occasionally match up the list of what Cellartracker thinks I have at home vs. what’s actually in there.

4

Sean, what scanner do you have?

5

I often put the bar code stickers on top of clear stickers that can be easily peeled off. Our clients then just have to remove the barcode sticker and stick it on apiece of paper as they walk out of the cellar.
We physically collect, or have the sheets scanned and emailed to us regularly to keep the invt updated. This is also great when the client is thousands of miles away.
For some reason, this is more reliable than having them scan the bottles. Most have scanners in their cellars as well, by prefer the stickers. They also like being able to remove the barcode info for presentation purposes.
Other family members, chefs and house managers love it too- they have all the info printed on the barcode that they need, so they don’t pull the wrong bottle.
MD

6

Even though I have no ownership interest in CT, I agree with Eric. It really works well once you get past the start-up costs/hassle. Entering wines and printing ~900 labels will take some time, and even getting the Dymo printing properly may require a bit of troubleshooting. But once you’ve done that it really makes things easier.

Cor.kz is a bit slow on scanning (to save Eric a post - it’s not his program and he does not offer support for it, just access to the CT database), but if you’re pulling only a couple bottles at a time it’s not bad. Perhaps the CT iPhone app will improve upon this.

But unless you’re going through restaurant-like volumes of wine the combination works great.

FWIW, I use hang-tags for the stickers. Makes it easy to see what each bottle is in the rack without pulling it out, and I can remove it before serving. I stick the label right on the bottle for daily drinkers because I’m not so worried about presentation.

7

I have the dymo printer already (purchased it years ago) and so the only purchase would be the scanner.

8

I like this solution. What stickers do you use that have a clear backing? I’ve yet to scan anything yet.

thanks

-paul

9

Motorola CS3070. I have had some problems with the reliability of the Bluetooth pairing on my Mac, but a few months ago I finally got a firmware update that seems to have fixed it.

10

i use the label for a <500 btl cellar… yeah it’s more work then just shoving your wine into racking slots…
but it makes tracking a whole lot easier… so it doesn’t have to be 7000 btls to be useful :wink:

11

I use a more low tech method. I am very disciplined about selecting the bottle I want to drink and removing it from CT before going downstairs to remove it from the cellar. As a backup for the rare undisciplined occasion, there is a yellow pad on a clipboard in the cellar that I can log out the bottle(s) for later entry in CT.

12

Even more low tech, eyeballing the recycle bin after the weekend for anything that might have slipped past quality control. [wow.gif]