Your Port collection ... what is the organization like?

[Tom Archer]

I have written my own Excel application for keeping track of my port and notes related to it.

As the file size was getting a bit mighty for Excel, a few years ago I put all the individual case details and notes on an unformatted plain text file which the main database then refers to when I want to call up the details on a case. This works very efficiently.

Every case gets a three digit serial number, and every bottle within the case gets a letter assigned to it. The computer records the location of bottle A from each case (if the bottles are racked) or the bay number and relative position if the bottles are still in their original case.

For bottles in their cases, the location code starts with the cellar number, bay number and position, so 35CR would mean cellar three, bay five, centre right

For racked bottles, every rack is numbered and every column in the rack is assigned a letter. I then count down, assigning 0 to the top of the rack and then work down.

Each bottle has a cut down paper luggage tag tied to it's neck with it's number shown.

For example, last night my bottle selection program decided that I should open a Graham 1983 from case number 401, a case that I've owned for nearly ten years, but not sampled. The computer records that the first bottle of the case is located in rack number 12, column G, row 19, which it expresses as 12G19.

The bottle selection code knows that rack 12 is a double depth rack and that there are 12 bottles, so it instructs me to pull bottle 401L from position 12G14 (I rack bottles from the ground up)

I then cut the tag off in the cellar and note the date and the bottle's fate on the back of the tag before placing it in a small box that I periodically empty when I update my records.

The system is one that I've evolved over the last ten years, learning from past errors as I did so. Bottles going AWOL or being drunk and forgotten about are now very rare occurrences. As the computer knows where every bottle is located, there is no need to group bottles by age or shipper, so very little storage space goes unused.

The G83 incidentally is in very good form, dark with rich cocoa on the palate and still well short of fully mature.

[Monique Heinemans.]

Wow Tom, you really are well organized..!

I'm almost ashamed when I think of the organization of my own cellar..
I do keep a record of what I owe in Xcell, but it takes some time in the cellar to find the right bottle..

[Gerwin de Graaf]

I keep an excell-sheet for the organisation of my wines and ports.

It lists what I have now, how many bottles I bought in total and when (and usually where), at what price etc. Also I have (a little like Tom) numbered the compartments in my 'cellar' with letters and numbers. These are also in my excell-sheet so I know where which bottles are.
For tasting notes (I don't always take notes) and reviews of wines and ports, I have a link in the excell, which refers to a tekst document which contains the notes of that wine or port.

[Glenn E.]

I used to make good use of CellarTracker, but that fell by the wayside and so is no longer accurate for me.

I have three wine fridges in our office, each of which in theory holds ~180 bottles. (Due to the presence of magnums none of them quite reach that number.) They used to be organized - long-term storage of pristine VP in the Eurocave, mid-term storage of VP, LBV, and age-able Tawny Port in the ArteVino (lower-end brand made by Eurocave), and short-term storage of Tawnies and some ready-to-drink VP/LBV in the generic cabinet. Only the Eurocave still retains that level of organization, and that's really only because I never touch those Ports. They're in storage for the long term.

Then... there are 5-ish boxes piled on the floor in the office. At the moment those are mostly Krohns purchased from Premier Cru, so some 30-yr old, some 1964 Branco, some 1968, and some 1976. But there's also ~12 bottles of VP/LBV odds and ends.

And last but not least, there's the box wall. Some of you have seen it. We've lined up boxes across the entry to the living room/dining room to keep our Yorkies out of those two rooms. It is mostly red wine for Kari, but there are some Ports in there as well. Including my 6L of 2011 Quevedo which I have no other place to store. At least the house is air conditioned now!

[Bert VD]

i'm not organized at all. i have a list of what i own on my computer. a pile of bottles at home and a pile in a friend's cellar (who doesn't drink any alcohol)

[Gary Richardson]

I use an Excel workbook that contains:

1. A wish list of bottles I am searching for
2. A record of everything I taste, with dates, tasting notes and scores
3. An inventory list sorted by age and type (Vintage, TWIOA, Colheita, LBV, Crusted, etc)
4. A fridge plan mapping out where all of my bottles are for my 2 fridges

When I decide to open something, I find it in the inventory tab then search for it in the fridge plan tabs. After opening, I photograph the bottle and complete the record tab.

Not overly sophisticated, but it works for what I have.

[Edward J]

I used to make good use of CellarTracker, but that fell by the wayside and so is no longer accurate for me.

I signed up and entered in a few wines and thought, nope, not going to do it. So I stopped. Spreadsheet is good enough for me.

[Eric Menchen]

I like CellerTracker for the access anywhere aspect. For a while I tried with a spreadsheet in the cloud, but Google Sheets lacks a lot of things I use, and the Office-equivalent apps weren't much better.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

[Andy Velebil]

Love Cellartracker.com IMO the best site for tracking your bottles. Lots of functionality with it and data already there. Plus you can chose how much data you want to see and/or use.

[Ronald Wortel]

As my collection is scattered around 4 locations around the world, Cellartracker is my saving grace.

[Al B.]

I've just had to (temporarily) hire a new off-site locker for all those odd bottles which just turn up at home. You know the kind, you have no idea where they come from but they just gradually accumulate until they take up too much space and you have to do something with them.

Despite that, I currently have port in 16 different locations. 3 are at home, 4 are professional off-site storage locations, 6 are with wine merchants waiting to be shipped and the other 3 are with friends.

Thank goodness my spreadsheet is pretty accurate. Although I am slightly worried that I'm supposed to have a bottle of Martinez 1970 in the garage waiting to be opened, but the garage is bare...

[Andy Velebil]

....
Thank goodness my spreadsheet is pretty accurate. Although I am slightly worried that I'm supposed to have a bottle of Martinez 1970 in the garage waiting to be opened, but the garage is bare...

Garage Monkeys...I heard they like Port.

[Tom Archer]

Thank goodness my spreadsheet is pretty accurate. Although I am slightly worried that I'm supposed to have a bottle of Martinez 1970 in the garage waiting to be opened, but the garage is bare...

My spreadsheet not only notes the location of my stocks, but can also map my wine racks (all thirty of them) to check if more than one bottle is allocated to a particular rack slot. My record keeping is over 99.9% accurate, but of the ten thousand or so bottles that have passed through my hands over the years, there are three bottles (none of great worth..) whose whereabouts are a mystery - and yes.. - that bugs me!

[Eric Menchen]

My Excel spreadsheet and CellerTracker have been off by one bottle for like three years in a row. Argggh!

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

[Scott Esterly]

I used to make good use of CellarTracker, but that fell by the wayside and so is no longer accurate for me.

I have three wine fridges in our office, each of which in theory holds ~180 bottles. (Due to the presence of magnums none of them quite reach that number.) They used to be organized - long-term storage of pristine VP in the Eurocave, mid-term storage of VP, LBV, and age-able Tawny Port in the ArteVino (lower-end brand made by Eurocave), and short-term storage of Tawnies and some ready-to-drink VP/LBV in the generic cabinet. Only the Eurocave still retains that level of organization, and that's really only because I never touch those Ports. They're in storage for the long term.

Then... there are 5-ish boxes piled on the floor in the office. At the moment those are mostly Krohns purchased from Premier Cru, so some 30-yr old, some 1964 Branco, some 1968, and some 1976. But there's also ~12 bottles of VP/LBV odds and ends.

And last but not least, there's the box wall. Some of you have seen it. We've lined up boxes across the entry to the living room/dining room to keep our Yorkies out of those two rooms. It is mostly red wine for Kari, but there are some Ports in there as well. Including my 6L of 2011 Quevedo which I have no other place to store. At least the house is air conditioned now!

Is EuroCave what you’d recommend for someone that needs to store VPs for 10-20 years? They’re expensive but seem to be the only true reliable option for very long term storage.

I’ve maxed out my 51 bottle no-brand fridge and need to figure out a second fridge. Half of my VPs are really young and I won’t be opening then for a long time.

[Andy Velebil]

I used to make good use of CellarTracker, but that fell by the wayside and so is no longer accurate for me.

I have three wine fridges in our office, each of which in theory holds ~180 bottles. (Due to the presence of magnums none of them quite reach that number.) They used to be organized - long-term storage of pristine VP in the Eurocave, mid-term storage of VP, LBV, and age-able Tawny Port in the ArteVino (lower-end brand made by Eurocave), and short-term storage of Tawnies and some ready-to-drink VP/LBV in the generic cabinet. Only the Eurocave still retains that level of organization, and that's really only because I never touch those Ports. They're in storage for the long term.

Then... there are 5-ish boxes piled on the floor in the office. At the moment those are mostly Krohns purchased from Premier Cru, so some 30-yr old, some 1964 Branco, some 1968, and some 1976. But there's also ~12 bottles of VP/LBV odds and ends.

And last but not least, there's the box wall. Some of you have seen it. We've lined up boxes across the entry to the living room/dining room to keep our Yorkies out of those two rooms. It is mostly red wine for Kari, but there are some Ports in there as well. Including my 6L of 2011 Quevedo which I have no other place to store. At least the house is air conditioned now!

Is EuroCave what you’d recommend for someone that needs to store VPs for 10-20 years? They’re expensive but seem to be the only true reliable option for very long term storage.

I’ve maxed out my 51 bottle no-brand fridge and need to figure out a second fridge. Half of my VPs are really young and I won’t be opening then for a long time.

Do you have temp controlled off-site wine storage somewhat near you? If so that may be a better option to look into.

[Scott Esterly]

I used to make good use of CellarTracker, but that fell by the wayside and so is no longer accurate for me.

I have three wine fridges in our office, each of which in theory holds ~180 bottles. (Due to the presence of magnums none of them quite reach that number.) They used to be organized - long-term storage of pristine VP in the Eurocave, mid-term storage of VP, LBV, and age-able Tawny Port in the ArteVino (lower-end brand made by Eurocave), and short-term storage of Tawnies and some ready-to-drink VP/LBV in the generic cabinet. Only the Eurocave still retains that level of organization, and that's really only because I never touch those Ports. They're in storage for the long term.

Then... there are 5-ish boxes piled on the floor in the office. At the moment those are mostly Krohns purchased from Premier Cru, so some 30-yr old, some 1964 Branco, some 1968, and some 1976. But there's also ~12 bottles of VP/LBV odds and ends.

And last but not least, there's the box wall. Some of you have seen it. We've lined up boxes across the entry to the living room/dining room to keep our Yorkies out of those two rooms. It is mostly red wine for Kari, but there are some Ports in there as well. Including my 6L of 2011 Quevedo which I have no other place to store. At least the house is air conditioned now!

Is EuroCave what you’d recommend for someone that needs to store VPs for 10-20 years? They’re expensive but seem to be the only true reliable option for very long term storage.

I’ve maxed out my 51 bottle no-brand fridge and need to figure out a second fridge. Half of my VPs are really young and I won’t be opening then for a long time.

Do you have temp controlled off-site wine storage somewhat near you? If so that may be a better option to look into.

I will check into this - this would be perfect. But I’m not sure there’s a lot of options in the Cleveland Ohio area

[Tom Archer]

Is EuroCave what you’d recommend for someone that needs to store VPs for 10-20 years? They’re expensive but seem to be the only true reliable option for very long term storage.

There is an awful lot of rubbish written - and then blindly parroted over and again by other writers without checking.. when it comes to wine storage.

A little research is quite revealing.

To get year round temperature stability in a traditional cellar, you need to go down about six basement levels into the ground. Needless to say, Bordeaux Châteaux cellars never come close to that. It is evident that from time to time, when there's a summer heatwave, those hallowed cellars will sometimes be close to, if not exceeding, 20C/70F. Great wines age well despite seasonal temperature fluctuations, so the notion that you need year round stability is clearly false.

Could wine fridges harm their contents? I have strong suspicion that they can, for two reasons, one unproven, the other much more concerning.

The unproven aspect is the vibration that fridges create. There is no firm evidence, that I'm aware of, that proves this is harmful, but there is good evidence, for reasons that are hard to explain scientifically, but from my own observations are beyond dispute; that rested bottles drink better than those that have been recently shipped. It is possible, but I've not proved it, that the vibrations of a fridge are disruptive to this resting process.

The more certain issue is the disruption to humidity levels that fridges tend to cause. Some fridges may have the means to regulate this, but the obsession with keeping humidity levels down to 70-80% to protect the condition of labels comes at the price of inducing ullage, which is not, in my book, a good thing at all.

Some may dispute my stance, but I am very firmly in the 'stuff the labels, it's the contents that matter' camp. And like humidity levels up at 90%+

And of course, aside from these nagging doubts about wine fridges, your electricity bill will mount up over long term storage.

Now you hail from Cleveland OH - try comparing your weather to that in Bordeaux. It looks a little bit more prone to extremes, but otherwise not that dissimilar, so there's scope for building a wine cellar without any refrigeration at all.

My largest cellar is a single storey underground, which I built 12 years ago. I would not repeat the method today. Holes in the ground need a whole host of expensive design elements, not least, the steps down to them, that are not needed when building on the surface.

By using a combination of insulating materials coupled to heat sinks (principally stackable five gallon plastic water containers) you can mimic the conditions of an underground cellar in a surface structure.

[Moses Botbol]

To get year round temperature stability in a traditional cellar, you need to go down about six basement levels into the ground. Needless to say, Bordeaux Châteaux cellars never come close to that. It is evident that from time to time, when there's a summer heatwave, those hallowed cellars will sometimes be close to, if not exceeding, 20C/70F. Great wines age well despite seasonal temperature fluctuations, so the notion that you need year round stability is clearly false.

A Jura wine producer who has current stocks back to the 19th century for sale and been in business 100's of years says that seasonal swings are crucial to long term aging. He told me steady temps are okay for 40 year aging, but for the long haul you need need the swings as the wine is alive.

[Eric Menchen]

... but the obsession with keeping humidity levels down to 70-80% to protect the condition of labels comes at the price of inducing ullage, which is not, in my book, a good thing at all.

Down to? Today the humidity where I live is 18%. Yes, it is winter and things will probably be better in the summer, but I live just east of giant mountains, and the predominant weather pattern is winds from the west which precipitate out moisture over said mountains, giving us very dry air by the time it makes it here. I'm not trying to keep humidity down, but raise it up.