Oenophiles: How is your wine cellar organized?
 

I have about a ~600-bottle wine cellar, mostly comprised of Bordeaux, cabs, Champagnes, with the random Rijoas, shiraz and such thrown in. Very few whites. I have prized long-aging wines, mid-range bottles to age another 5-10 years and the drink-now-type stuff.

I'm trying to reorganize and figure out what makes sense. It's a walk-in room with floor to ceiling racking. The most obvious thing to me and the only thing I've determined so far is that the stuff I don't need to get to for a while should be at the top.

How do your organize your wines?

I have no real organization at all. I have every bottle entered in cellartracker, and each shelve is numbered and each bottle is numbered, so if I want to find something it's easy to find, but other than that, I'm relying on the software to keep track of stuff.

I would be careful about putting stuff on top unless you have checked that the temperature and humidity at the top of the racks is what you expected it to be for storage, I've seen some cellars where there was a significant difference where the heat was collecting at the top if there was not something to keep it circulating.

I sort of feel my cellar is like a modern dry cleaner, when you go in you give them your phone number, they punch it in, and it tells them where they have to go to get your stuff.

It works for me, so before we get to the usual posts saying why it's a stupid idea to do that way, I don't really care :D

I use cellartracker too to determine the drink-by dates. Your method of having a grid for finding the bottles makes sense.

It's temperature-controlled room, but I hadn't thought to check variations between the top, middle and bottle. I'll check that. Thanks.

My cellar consists of 6-8 bottles of "bought this week, drink now" type of stuff.

It's super easy to keep it organized. ^

My cellar is a third the size of yours. I mark all the boxes with a black magic marker. That makes it easier to read. As for organization... did you ever see Randys office at the HOM in COS? If so, you have my answer. ;)

I know where 90% of my bottles are.

I like it - clean and simple.

i leave the wine in the cases. count down as they go by marking on the box with a magic marker. write the name of the wine in big letters on the box. separate whites to the left, reds to the right on each of three sides.

daily is on the west wall, tall CA cases are no the south wall, burg/bordeau boxes are on the east wall.

multi case buys are stocked in the center area. i have a couple 3 racks that store the loose bottles.

i don't count bottles, but last count was 200 cases.

the racks hold individual boxes.

Pretty much sums up my method. Drive to France (about 25 minutes away), load up the car, drive back. When getting low, repeat.

Walgreens is my wine cellar. Sniff.

I have a temperature-controlled room in my basement. Floor dimension is 5 by 9 and a ceiling height of 9 feet. I use the VintageView racks along the 9 foot wall. I have 6 columns of racks, each column holding 72 bottles. Basically I organize by type and year. For a particular type I have the oldest at the bottom since it is reachable. Every once in a while I'll get on a ladder and move newer stock down into the open spaces to make room at the top for new purchases.

Column 1: Ports at the bottom, then Napa Petit Sirah.
Column 2: Oldest Cabernets (1990s low, 2005 at top)
Column 3: Newer Cabernets (>2005) at the top, then all other reds by type and year below
Column 4: High quality Chardonays & a few champagnes
Column 5: Drink Now reds
Column 6: Drink Now whites

While we do drink from columns 1-4, columns 5 & 6 are mainly for my wife to choose from when I'm not around :) or when we need a bottle to take to a friend's house.

Somewhat related but can anybody recommend a wine refrigerator for those of us without cellars? I'm thinking something that will accommodate somewhere between 20 and 50 bottles

I've got a GE Monogram one that fits under the counter (about the same size as a dishwasher) and holds ~50 bottles. Never had any problems with it in the last 6 years.

When I was fresh out of college (read: broke but loved good wine ;)), I bought a Danby 35-bottle single-zone chiller. It has been ten years and it still works within 2-3 degrees of the temperature setting, leading me to believe it was $200 well-spent. I just recently turned it into a Champagne-only fridge as I renovated my condo and put a 166-bottle single-zone chiller in my kitchen for the reds.

crumpled paper bag :D

cases are in there own separate area; single bottles are racked with lowest being aged bottles, top shelf "drink" and "drink now"

As a DC resident, I'd love to hear which stores you frequent???

I'm an Arrow Wine guy... (Arlington). And occasionally Schneider's on Cap Hill and Andy Bassin's on McArthur...).

As for storage, I have a 24 bottle rack for the daily-drinkers and then a large wooden chest full of the better stuff. I don't have proper storage where I live now so nothing stays in-house more than about 18 months max....