16 Dec Wine Cellar Organisation Tips
Why Is a Fine Wine Cellar Important? Here are some suggestions for arranging your wine collection in the cellar. Proper wine storage is essential whether you’re stocking up on bottles to age for a while, just getting started, or have a carefully curated wine cellar filled to the brim with hundreds of bottles.
Wine Cellar Organisation
Keep your wine collection neat and organised to avoid opening bottles that aren’t ready yet. A well-organised wine cellar will also help you identify gaps in your collection, allowing you to make more informed purchasing decisions.
Each and every wine cellar is unique. How you set up the wine cellar or cooler will be determined by the size and type of your wine collection, as well as your personal preferences.
Follow The Grid
A well-organised system that facilitates the search for and retrieval of individual bottles is beneficial to any size wine cellar. Make it look like an Excel spreadsheet by labelling the columns with numbers and the rows with letters. Suddenly, you won’t have to worry about where you stashed the last bottle of wine in your collection.
Organise by Bottle Price
If you buy wine on the spur of the moment and don’t want your cellar to grow to more than 200 bottles, sorting by price may be the way to go. If you’re new to wine collecting and want to broaden your horizons while developing your palate, this is a great place to start.
Organise by Wine Bottle Style
Those who are just starting out with their wine collection may find it useful to categorise bottles based on their style. If you only have a few bottles of each type of wine, divide them into red, white, dessert, sparkling, and rosé wines.
Organise By Varietals
Organising by variety is useful for collections of 200 or more bottles of wine that concentrate on new world producers. When you’re in the mood for some aromatic Riesling or a bottle of Grenache, you’ll know exactly which shelf to look in when perusing your wine cooler or cellar. Classify wine blends by the dominant flavours. Or you could just create a whole new category for mixtures. If you have a wine collection of this size, you could also consider sorting the bottles by year of release.
Organise by Wine Region
If you have more than 200 bottles of wine, you have most likely collected vintages from all over the world. You can currently sort your wine collection in a variety of ways, including by country and then by region within that country. You might want to reserve the first three or four shelves of the wine cooler for your French wines for convenience. Each row or set of columns can then represent a different region of France. An Excel spreadsheet can also help to simplify keeping track of so many bottles.
Organise by Wine Producer
Many wine enthusiasts are members of exclusive winery clubs, where they receive allocations of new wines each year. This strategy can be profitable in the long run because collections of three or more items, or groups of vintages, tend to fetch higher auction prices. You could begin by categorising your collection by province or variety, and then proceed to the producers.
Use An Inventory App
When you have more than 100 bottles of wine, you should start using a wine inventory app. To keep better tabs on your wine collection and streamline management, you can scan the barcodes on each bottle with a smartphone app. It will make it easier to find your vintage wines, and your personal tasting notes will be right at your fingertips.
Find a System Best Suited To Your Needs
Keep in mind that there is no one “correct” way to store your wine. As your wine collection grows, your preferred system may change. And you should try different things to see what works best for your collection. Finally, if you can quickly and effortlessly locate your wine, you’ll know you made the right decision.
To learn more about our wine cellar design and installation services, contact Signature Cellars at 1300 570 636 or through this form. If you require assistance with wine cellar design from the ground up, our talented team of architects and designers is here to assist. Our services can be customised to meet your specific needs and budget.
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