Two home cellars, one organized, the other less so. In the LeCache I have Euro one side, US on the other, then arranged alphabetically by varietal/blend top to bottom (i.e. Cabernet Sauvignon on top, Zinfandel on the bottom) for the US side - by region on the Euro side (Italy top, then Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Misc). The Wine Enthusiast unit in the garage is MUCH less organized, in fact, hardly at all if it weren’t for the two shelves that are entirely (or nearly) one producer. It’s my goal to organize everything in there at some point during the cooler months…we’ll see if I get to it. Would be helpful also to do it if only for the inventory check with CellarTracker.
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White, roses, and sparkling on one side, reds on the other, then by varietal (more or less), then ready to drink at top and descending by time to age needed. But I have a much smaller cellar than most of the folks on here, so I know where everything is anyway. But organizing (and re-organizing as we add and remove bottles) like that helps me remember what we have and what is ready to drink.
Organized by region then by vintage (oldest to youngest). I know where everything is and it is a lot of fun trying to decide which bottle to open; I wander around waiting for an inspiration on the wine style, then choose a vintage / bottle age then the producer. Need plenty of space for this mind you
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“Organize” just by date I want to start drinking each wine. I put many different wines in the same 12 pack box, off-site. Then, a couple times a year I grab the “mature” boxes and bring them home. After 8-12 years, I’ve totally forgotten what is in each box. When we open them it’s like Christmas Day. We are completely surprised and have a variety of bottles ready to drink 
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For sure that is part of the joy of a regular reorg, getting reacquainted with your wine.
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I used to organize by region or grape type and now I just fill empty slots with bottles when I bring cases home from my off site storage.
I still tend to put my cabernets at the bottom of my cellar but honestly it’s wherever the bottle fits and I use my cellar app for everything else.
Off site storage is organized by box number, lockers hold 13 case boxes which I number 1-13 and track on celler tracker. No real organization, but I do try to put things into a boxes that have reasonably similiar future drink dates.
Wine fridge is organized by short vs. long storage, and by region. Long storage in back, early in front. Pinot/Chard on one shelf, BDX on different shelves.
Overflow closet, no organization other than it’s stuff that needs to go to long term storage.
Pantry, 4 cases of short term drinking, again no realy organization but it’s in racks and easily identifiable.
Same. Every slot in the cellar has a number (in the form “DC04”, where D is the wall it’s on, C is the column, and 04 is the row), and bottle locations are in Cellartracker. There is no attempt to organize it in any way. For my style it felt counterproductive to do that, because no matter what organization scheme I chose, I’d either have to leave a bunch of room between categories for growth (thus wasting space while that area was unused), or do regular shuffles to make more room for categories that outgrew their area. My cellar is not large enough to allocate extra space for every group to let them grow, and I do not have the energy or interest to regularly rebalance. So I just put bottles where there is room, and I make sure it’s accurate in CT.
I’m going on probably 15 years of this system (starting with boxes in various offsite lockers, and now in my home cellar) and it has always worked well for me. But I also am not the type to want to just wander down there and browse (and I AM the type to pretty meticulously keep records of where things are, and what is coming and going).
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Some will think this persnickety, but I think it is worth the effort
- Find empty slot
- Place bottle.
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I remember a time when step 1 used to be a big challenge 
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New World/Old World
Then Region/Vintage/Producer/Wine
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CT is my friend when it comes to organization. Our wine is mostly Burgs, Chard, Bubbles
At home: Ready to drink or close to it + ~ 2/3 of our fancy bottles regardless of vintage, so I can um, fondle/gaze on them.
Red Burgs by producer mostly, whites mostly all in same corner.
A smattering of Italian, Bordeaux and Riesling are together, easy to paw through since they are all in one place.
Champagne and my wife’s beloved OR Pinots in the basement closet. I don’t even enter them in CT.
Offsite: Long term aging, ~ 1/3 of the fancy bottles. Most magnums here
By producer, a work in progress.
A fun (for me) winter project is to switch out all my 12-bottles boxes for 6-bottle boxes and at the same time get the “By Producer” ones all in the same spots. Will also I.D. things to go to auction.
- Enter location in CT
And you’re done.
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100%
I subscribe to this but took things a little bit further. I built an app on top of Cellartracker tthat talks to my cellar and lights up the location of the bottle I’m looking for. Over the top and unecessary but still a fun project.
Video here:
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this is brilliant, steve.
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That’s wild!
For your next project, you should have color coded lights that signify where each bottle is in its drinking window: too young, early drinking, peak, late drinking, over the hill.
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I got a bunch of different features built into this thing.
(1) My tubes are double deep so its got a mode that find me all the empty slots
(2) There’s a button for my wife (who doesn’t know much about wine) that lights up the bottles that are safe for her to pick when I’m not around.
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That’s my method, though I’m using Excel instead of CT. (Yes, I know-- I should switch.)
I have moved a few times and moved wine with it. It starts out organized by region. But after a while for various reasons I just put wine in the most convenient open slot.