Choosing what to drink- CT vs perusing your cellar?

WINE TALK
1

I store my wines off-site, so Cellartracker definitely plays a role when planning what to drink. However I sometimes find myself deviating from the plan when I get to my wine locker and start rummaging through the boxes. It’s interesting how the visual of seeing the actual bottles can be so powerful.

What’s your method? Do you map your bottles out and stick to your plan, or are you taken by the power of suggestion when you see your bottles live?

2

No known plan just pull out what i feel like at the time. There is method, just not sure what it is :slight_smile:. It is the great advantage of having wines on-site.

3

…and if Mike did not bring back a good bottle we would threaten to lock him up in his wine cellar. It has not happened yet though.

I understand the necessity to store off-site including temperature control and space but, as far as I’m concerned, I like the fact that there has to be a degree of impulse in the decision to open a bottle. I always consult cellar tracker but in the end, it might not be the ultimate way of deciding what to bring back up.

4

I store off-site so I need to plan what I’m going to take from storage and say drink in the next week, which is a bit of a pain, but is manageable.

I wish I had all of my wines on CT but they’re on a spreadsheet that is better than Mike’s (and with a lot less volume) but is far from perfect. [I can just imagine Eric popping up in a minute and saying it’s easy to load to CT …].

So when I get to my locker with my plan I can’t find some things. And then I find other things, I think I should be drinking or that are better than my original plan, and so it goes … So I generally make a plan based on my list and follow that 80% of the time but always leave my storage with a couple of extra bottles I hadn’t planned …

5

Like you, most of my wines are off-site. I always go with a plan (literally a list with specific wines and the boxes they are in), but usually deviate a little (read: I grab a few extras). [oops.gif]

6

[wow.gif]

Yup, it’s pretty easy. I would be happy to help. [highfive.gif]

7

Thanks Eric. I thought you might say that.

Cheers, Howard

8

Yes, very easy. You want to have a plan when naming your bins so they show up the way you want (Numbers show before alpha). But that is all

To answer the question, I have one rack with about 175 bottles sorted by variety (pinot, syrah, Rhone etc … ok, that’s not a variety). and those are the wines I drink. I go thru CT about twice a year and decide which bottles to move.

Then I go down and peruse that rack and pull.

9

It’s a mix. Sometimes I look at CT on the iPad and sometimes I just go down and root around. And sometimes I come back up with a different bottle than I chose when looking at CT.

10

I start with the CT Ready To Drink list and then use a last minute visual for my final choice.

11

I nearly always make on plan on CT before heading down to the cellar. I have quite a few wines that really are in need of drinking. It seems like if I just look around a take something off the rack I end drinking something too young. But with the mobile app, I can grab a bottle and check it out on CT before leaving the cellar. That has saved me from committing infanticide several times recently.

12

I usually have a variety in mind then go to the cellar to pick out which bottle I really want. I will use CT to check the drinking window but that sometimes goes out the window if I just really want it. I need to get better about doing that and need to set the bottles aside that are past their drinking window so I can consume those first.

13

I just follow the lead of my hero…Mike. I sit on my doorstep awaiting the arrival of my FedEx/UPS guy, open that
box up, and pound back the first btl I happen to grab. It’s much simpler that way!!! [snort.gif]
Tom

14

Most often I just go to the cellar and pull. The cellar is organized by varietal. If I want the wife to pull something to bring to a restaurant I’ll pull up my cellar on Cork.z and tell her what bin/row to pull from. CT is a great tool but I only get out the list or pull up the app when I have visitors or want to pull a specific bottle and need the roadmap. I like that Eric is open with others like Cork.z and Vinopal so we have front-engine options for visuals though only the CT app is efficient for adding or moving wines around.

15

See - Pop-ups aren’t always a bad thing!

16

More or less my approach as well. I have a CT “ready to drink” list in the cellar, so I look at that occasionally. But usually I’m driven by my sense of varietal plus style and cost as to what I pull on a given occasion. I don’t have enough yet where I can’t keep most of this in my head.

(BTW, as in my profile pic I have all my wines tagged, so can look at that for guidance as well).

17

Thanks all. Nice reads on the responses. Sorry it took me a while to get back to this. I do think think the spontaneity of having all my wines on-site would be fun. One unfortunate thing I’ve found myself doing as I’ve planned what bottles to pull from the locker, is pulling things first and foremost that I just want to get rid of… I have to talk myself into opening the stuff I really want to drink!

18

I try to organise it so that the more mature/ready bottles are the most accessible, and the *immature wines are buried away. Thus browsing should present a good few options without having to go digging. The problem with this, is new purchases, that are unlikely to make it to the darkest recesses, so as part of the ~ annual / bi-annual cellar audit, I’ll try to re-org at the same time.

For evenings where we’re having friends around, I’m more likely to peruse CT and note the locations - it’s worth it for 3+ bottles I reckon. I’ll also use CT for specific bottles for specific events, or if I have a quick browse and there’s nothing obvious to choose.

regards
Ian

  • Otherwise the pranks they get up to are quite intolerable.
19

I try to organize so that the ready-to-drink bottles are closer to the top of the heap. But that’s generally a massive failure.

So instead of choosing from my cellar, I choose from whatever’s available at the top of the heap. Which tends to always be bad for the stash of 2012 Germans I keep trying to cellar.

20

[basic-smile.gif] I understand that problem