Cellar Software
Brandon MarcI’ll say it over and over again that the convergence of IT and the wine industry will change the way we interact with wine. But I suppose you already know that? Sure, there are aspects of IT that may take the ‘romance’ out of wine, but there are also very practical tools that one can use to better the wine experience. I would like to highlight one such tool…
Lets say you had a private cellar of 500 bottles of wine with a total value of 60 000 ZAR. As all you savvy wine enthusiasts will know every bottle matures at a different rate and therefore peaks at different times. Now how is one supposed to keep track of the maturation status of each individual bottle of wine? With difficulty I’d say. It is IT that has provided us with a simple (and rather enjoyable I might add) solution to the problem. I’m talking about cellar software. Software that allows one to manage the contents of your cellar, saving you time and money.
One such software program is mi-vine(m), which I will be using to stock and manage my cellar. For more information on this practical product visit them at www.mivinem.co.za.
Cheers!
Brandon Marc
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Comments
Brandon Marc (Who am I?) Hi Ryan,
I’m afraid I can’t comprehensively answer your question as I have little experience with other online ‘Wine Management’ products.
Instinctively I would say that one advantage of the Mi-vine(m) software is that it can be used offline and then sychronized to your online profile.
As far as I’m aware most other ‘Wine Management’ software products can only be accessed online…
Brandon Marc
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Mike (Who am I?) This is certainly going to be a whole new experience for us “Baby Boomers”. The only thing we learn’t about wine some years ago was how to drink it. I must say the wine industry is becoming more and more exciting.
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Simon Back (Who am I?) Cool link! What are you up to in Sweden? I was there August/September. Stockholm is such a great city. SB
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Anyone interested in trying a cellar management program should look at Cellar Tracker - http://www.cellartracker.com - which is the leading tool with 65,000 users, 10.5 million bottles logged and 710,000 tasting notes.
And it is free to use.
Biggest problem with using any cellar tool, home written or commercial, is to enter details of your wines. Its a chore to enter not just name, variety and vintage but correct details of appellation. With the size of the CT database its almost certain that the wine is already defined in the database, you you save all that typing. If you need to enter a completely new wine, you take a similar wine and copy & edit that..
CT is online. Marc sees that as a disadvantage, but I don’t agree. It means that I can access my database anywhere Iam in teh world to update withwiens I have had for dinner & etc.
You can upload & download your records as an Excel spreadsheet.
CT has an active forum and any problems & requests are quickly taken up by the software’s writer Eric LeVine.
I have no commercial interest in CT, just a very satisfied user. I have all my wines logged, plus every wine I have drunk (e.g. bought from restaurants) since I started using it in July 2006)
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Brandon Marc (Who am I?) @ Mike: Thanks for the perspective, let us not forget that wine is made for drinking!
@ Simon: Welcome Simon… I’m currently living and working out of Stockholm. It might not be Cape Town, but it’s an awesome city nonetheless!
Next time you’re in town let me know and I can point you in the direction a decent wine bar 
@ Peter: Thanks for the info on the CT cellar management software… you sure sound like a satisfied user!
Cheers!
Brandon Marc
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I certainly like the idea of “copy and paste”. And I have recently seen some stats of Peter’s drinking habits which he posted on our forum. It made for interesting reading matter.
It certainly got me very interested in Cellar Tracker and I have been promising myself to get started. I am heading off to CT right now!
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Interesting topic Brandon. I have however spotted some free ‘Wine Management’ websites on the internet. How do they compare to the software you refer to in your article? I’ve noticed that an annual fee is charged for use of this software?
Anyway, I’m happy to see that they have a version for us Apple users
Cheers!