Ally, don’t be shy about emailing me if you have questions. Also, you might find the CellarTracker BETA site to be a bit easier to use than the current site.
+1 on the beta site. Although I haven’t figured out how to post a TN to this forum through the beta site. What am I missing, Eric? Sorry in advance for the threadjack.
Eric,
…Freakin cool website! I’m excited to use it. I was on another one that was similar (Cork’d) but it was shut down. This seems even better! Thanks!! 
It’s too buried. In the beta site click MY TASTING NOTES at the upper right. Then click BULK EDIT OPTIONS. Then select checkbox(es) next to notes and pick the PUBLISH choice from the list of bulk actions.
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, Cork’d was in the same space for about 5 years but didn’t quite catch on. If you can get a bulk export of any of your data from that site I can help you import it into CellarTracker. And everything you put onto CellarTracker can be automatically backed up to Excel as well.
you might as well get a subscription to wine searcher pro (integrates with CT). If you buy enough wine, it will easily pay for itself.
That’s great. Been using CT for a while but did not know that. Could you please explain how?
Thanks Eric! I’ll try it later
Maybe going a bit against the flow here but… I wouldn’t worry about a cellar just yet if I were you, mostly because you do not seem to be buying wines in order to age them and your collection is not that large. Although I can’t really say it was a mistake, I bought a wine cooling unit when I started, and at some point a friend of mine pointed out that the wine in it was barely worth the price of the unit itself. And that my basement (which usually peaked to 65-70F in summer) was good enough for what I had in mind at that stage.
If I were to start all over again, the first thing I’d do would be to spend my whole budget on wines (except maybe a couple of reference books, like a good Atlas and the Oxford’s companion, a good corkscrew, and a couple of $10 Spiegelau or Riedel glasses). I wouldn’t spend any money on a storage unit (of any kind), on a critic’s publication, on software of any kind (except a donation to WB & CT of course 
. I’d just spend all my budget on wines, to discover as many regions and styles as I can.
In the end if your palate goes toward wines that don’t particularly need to age (say 2-3 years), then you don’t even really need a wine cellar. Just find the darkest and coolest place in your house, and here you go. Otherwise there will still be ample time to think about a proper storage solution.
Good advice. I’d say in the Northeast, store it passive in a dark, still place. If you like drinking the wine cooler than room temp, get a small cooler for what you plan to drink soon. When I started 3 years ago I bought a 250 bottle Vinotheque (from 1992) on Craigslist for $200. It worked very well until a few weeks ago…now I suspect a repair bill is going to cost more than the unit. If the repair bill is pricey, I might get rid of it, and just go passive. I’m not ready to buy wines to lay down, I’ll just buy other peoples older wines from cellar raiders, and the like.
Also, if you’re looking for local tastings/get-to-gethers Wine.woot has an active membership that throw 4-6 tasting event every year in the Northern Virginia, MD, DC area. This is a thread from one of their past events NoVA/DC Woot Group.
I have not attended a Berserker offline, but I’m sure they’re a blast too. Gotta find some Berserkers from my area.
Sweet Justin. Thanks for the link. You should go to the Telluride event!
I am late to the game with this (never actually clicked on this forum, Bad Leslie)
My first collection was in the closet of my home office. What a bad idea. Within a year, almost all of my bottles were cooked.
So, like many others have said here, look into offsite storage and a small fridge or something for home.
Welcome to the board. It is a wealth of knowledge here. These guys in one way shape or form on various boards have corrupted the heck out of me in a good way. Made some great lifelong friends here all because of our love for wine.
Never too late Leslie. I look forward to all the info that can be gleaned from this forum.
I was able to purchase an old ( 10-12 year ) Vinotheque cabinet pretty cheaply that is intended to be a short term solution for my wine storage. It is running fine but clearly the clock is ticking on it.
Does anyone have experience with either replacing the compressor in this unit or either converting the cabinet to use an electric cooling unit?
depending up the type of cooling unit, they can slide in and out easily. I have a storage credenza that has a breezaire cooling unit that I replaced, when looking around they were all similar in size.
I started collecting about 4 years ago, and have primarily used smaller fridges purchased on craigslist for cheap. Depending on the ad, you can usually tell who is getting rid of a unit they’ve used and outgrown/is into wine, and who got the unit as a present and doesn’t have a clue. Those in the latter category are usually willing to be haggled into the $50-$100 for a 30-50 bottle unit. If you think you’ll be moving anytime soon, they also double as a cooler of sorts to transport your wine in (once you add some padding, etc.). I’ve got 3 I use now, and am considering a 4th (plus I’ve got what amounts to a couple lockers in previous cities I’ve lived in that I’ve not been able to consolidate yet). I’ve only ever burned one out, and that was after putting it through excessive abuse for 3 months in an ~85+ degree house in AZ. It broke down literally the day before I left, and I was down to my final bottle in there. RIP, vinoview.
Bottom line: If you’re not ready to sink consistent, or big, dollars on storing wine, a craigslisted fridge will more than serve your cause for a few years.
Repeat.
Several people on here have mentioned that tastings are the way to learn a lot about wine and I couldn’t agree more, when my wife and were first getting into wine, we attended a weekly tasting in our town for about 6-9 months before we really started to get some kind of grip on what we liked and why we liked it.
I would add though that many of the regular tastings around here are generally a random assortment of 5-7 wines picked off the shelves with 1 cali red, 1 spanish red, 1 off-dry white, 1 dry white, etc. I find that I remember and learn much more when I attend a tasting that is themed one way or another, and that the more specific the theme, the more I tend to learn about my tastes for a particular wine. For example, my wife and I recently attended a tasting of 15 Chateauneuf-du-Papes, all from 2010. I found this to be incredibly instructive as I now feel fairly confident I know the general character of THOSE wines from THAT vintage. If I had tasted 15 randoms with 1 CdP in there, and didn’t like it (or did), did I really learn anything?
Lots of responses on here, I hope I added something ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Short answer: yes, it is worth your while to start a wine collection without a cellar. But be reasonable about it. You have to consider your available space, budget, and what you like. Everyone above has given great advice to you already, but to sum it up: start small and slow. Build it up over the years as opposed to rushing to build a sizable collection right now.