Does wood have any long term durability concerns given the constant humidity in the cellar?
That’s well done.
Great cellar, Paul. I will chime in about CT. Each bottle in my cellar has a unique location and CT does an awesome job. That said, if your current spreadsheet works best for your situation, stick with it.
Cheers,
Colin ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Do you use it on-line or do you have a usable printout? What I have works fine, but it’s not like I’m opposed to better mousetraps.
If humidity is high enough to cause wood rot, you’ll have a lot of other problems as well, such as labels with mildew and coming off, mold in the cellar, and more.
I use it online, but I also print out the inventory on old-fashioned parchment-type paper and keep it in the cellar in a distressed leather binder (since my cellar is very “old world” in style). I can write on the paper printout when I add or remove bottles, then update the inventory periodically online (at which time I will print out an updated copy).
Colin
From my research thus far, our normal cellar humidities are generally high enough to cause rot concerns with some woods. There are woodworker websites that can tell you the general rot resistance of various woods, so if you’re planning on doing something totally custom, I’d consult that first. It seems that pine, redwood, mahogany, and white oak are all very appropriate for the application, in about that order of durability. All will last a lifetime, but I’m leaning towards white oak since I’m building it myself. If it’s good enough for wine barrels and ship’s hulls…
Nice cellar.
Guess this goes to show how differently we use an inventory tool. I’ve been using CT for almost 13 years now (user 814), and I don’t think I have ever used it to print out a list of wines. Maybe a specific list of wines I was picking up at a particular store once or twice but I think that is it.
Cellar is organized in bins. Vast majority of bins are 12 bottles but many are 8 or 9 depending on the racking configuration. To me a bin per rack spot would be a nightmare of maintenance.
Looks really great.
I have similar rackings (but more roughly built), and also didn´t treat the wood with varnish etc. - still fine after 15 years.
One question: aren´t there any racks for multiple bottles - 6 or 12 bts. of the same wine? Or for full cases?
It seems a bit inpractical to store multiple bottles seperately - but that´s just my thought.
Looks great! We made many similar choices, though we have a lot more open bin storage for multiple bottles/cases and OWCs.
All our racking is in as of last week and all our wine gets delivered today from offsite. In fact, the trucks may be at the house now!! We are struggling with how to log locations. While we really like the idea of each wine having a designated slot, we also want to group by region, and anticipate a time when we’d have to do a large scale shift to accommodate a sizable purchase. We don’t want to have to shift every other bottle location that’s impacted. I suppose we could go Jay’s route and not care if there a burgs beside Rhones, but that eliminates the very pleasurable and practical option to peruse the Piedmont section, for instance, when considering what to drink. It’s just not the same to do it on a screen.
Haven’t solved it yet…
Another renovation project is on the horizon with a new dedicated cellar/storage room. I have been utilizing single binning, but am starting to buy case and half cases of what I like to drink these days. Some combo racking will be in the new design. No need for cooling, below grade and passive works fine in these parts. I build my own cabinets and racking. I’m retired now, but have access to a shared shop for small projects.
Hi Sarah:
I have numerous “cellar locations,” including bin storage areas that were specified by me, based upon the layout of my cellar. It is really quite easy to achieve what you are looking for with CellarTracker. You may want to look into it. With CT I know where each and every bottle in my cellar is located.
You don’t need to keep rearranging your wines. Just keep a cellar log printout from CT. The printout will subdivide your wines by region, appellation, etc. You can easily peruse them in your cellar without having separate designated areas for Rhone, Burgundy, Bordeaux, etc.
Cheers,
Colin
P.S. I have no financial interest in CT (although I wish I did). 
Thanks Colin, but I think you must be confusing me with one of the “spreadsheet guys” in this thread. I’ve been a dedicated user of CT for more than 12 years, so there’s no need to “look into it.” I know all the ins and outs. I think you also misunderstood the challenge I was describing, which is that I WANT to have regions grouped together. I WANT to be able to physically go to the cellar and stand in front of the Champagne section, for instance, not look over a spreadsheet. I do not want everything jumbled in together, with my Giacosas (for instance) spread out around the cellar, even if I know exactly where to find each bottle. I want all vintages of Krug together, all wines of Keller together, next to each other. I want to be able to go to the Conterno section, which is within the Piedmont section. To make that work, assigning an exact slot is next to impossible across the board, because (as I said) any purchases of size would necessitate moving the next section over to accommodate the new purchase. So you see, it’s not about needing to have dedicated areas - I know that’s not necessary in order to find bottles when you have CT at your fingertips - it’s about wanting things organized in logical fashion.
We came to a good solution, though. For most regions, an exact location isn’t necessary because we tend to have a large volume of a smallish number of producers, so within champagne it’s very easy to find the Taittinger CdC , and within that sub-section, not too hard to find the vintage I want. For the tougher regions, though, like our Ridge collection, we’ll use an exact location. There are just too many ones and twos of random vintages and vineyards. Only a limited number of regions/producers will necessitate that exactitude. I’m pleased with this dual approach.
I think the big advantage is that when 12 bottles becomes 7, you don’t have to move anything around. With individual slots, I look at the list that says I have 7 bottles and don’t care whether I pull from 53F or 127R (or what I put in the empty space I leave behind).
This is EXACTLY why i’m so attached to my paper list via spreadsheet. That’s what I skim/browse (organized by region/year/producer). Very different from searching for “2010 Gonon” - fine if you know that’s what you want, but that’s not browsing.
Someone need design a cellar robot that moves bottles and logs locations.
In terms of CT bin size let me give a fresh example that I hope NEVER happens to you. Last week for reasons I won’t go into (water penetration) we had to completely replace the floor in our 1850 bottle cellar.
I unloaded one 30 case rack into boxes and then staged the remaining racks out of the room. Every bottle had to be moved. I am just finishing moving it all back now. If I had to move every single bottle out of and back into a specific slot… let’s just say suicide comes to mind. I would probably still be moving the wine OUT of the room at this point.
So it will probably NOT happen to you, but you might want to think about it for a passing minute before you spend many, many hours doing your inventory. Labor of Love has its limits.