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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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…
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.