Aging wine consists of one golden rule: Patience. You must wait for the wine to age slowly in the comfort and safety of your wine cellar. However, the wine isn’t going to wait for you… When it’s time, it’s time! Keeping track of 20 wine bottles is fine, but when a wine collection gets in the hundreds, it can quickly become an impossible task. Fortunately, the answer is in the palm of your hand… Yes, that’s your phone and the many wine cellar trackers that are available to help you keep tabs on your VERY important wine meetings ;) Let’s ponder!
In our earlier days of drinking wine, wine storage was never an issue for me and my wife… And that’s because we weren’t storing wine! We would simply buy wine occasionally and drink it right then and there. There was no storage or aging going on, and our tiny apartment at the time wasn’t exactly suited for that. Sadly, the store was our wine cellar. All that said, I grew up with the notion that wine gets better with age.
Cellaring & Aging Wine
Both sets of my grandparents (paternal and maternal) had a wine cellar the size of my first apartment… Seriously, what does 300 square feet of wine look like? It’s magical! My brother and I would go in there and look at those vintages that preceded our respective birth years by decades! It was one bottle after another resting peacefully, collecting dust and housing a few spiders that conveniently declared residency between the many wine racks. So needless to say, cellaring and aging wine is something that I quickly started doing with vigorous passion as soon as we moved into a bigger place.
My desire to store wine in my wine cellar was the result of all these years spent admiring the wine cellars of my grandparents. I knew then that I would have my own someday. And now I do. But keeping track of a couple hundred bottles of wine quickly became complicated and overwhelming. I even missed out on a few important “rendez-vous” with bottles that went past their peak. So I started looking into wine cellar trackers to help me store my wine with complete peace of mind. Lo and behold, there are many options out there…
Welcome To The Future Of Wine Collecting
Wine collectors have different needs based on the size of their wine collection and their drinking habits. Those inventory management apps can help them track their cellars, find their bottles, view market values, and build their tasting journals. Here is a small preview of some of the features available to them:
- Scan labels or search for wines to add from existing databases, and the option to add new wines.
- Track consumer and wine professional notes for future reference and capture memories of special wine moments.
- Read and share community reviews on wines.
- Build a wishlist of wines you want.
- View market value from multiple sources, such as Wine Searcher, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine Market Journal).
- See comprehensive and interactive charts of your collection and activity.
- Access wine scores and reviews from major wine critics.
- Explore live wine pairings.
- Get timely notifications for the advised drinking window to optimize your drinking experience.
- Build a custom 3D cellar or fridge with 3D location technology to help you find bottles in an instant.
As you can see, they thought of pretty much everything. Who are they, you ask? Talented app builders, software developers, and wine enthusiasts from around the world. Keep reading for a comprehensive list of wine cellar trackers that will change the way you drink wine.
Wine Cellar Trackers
A wine collection has monetary and sentimental value. Wine with aging potential isn’t cheap. Tracking its value and drinking stage not only makes sense, it is also indispensable. There are many wine cellar trackers that can help you manage your collection with ease. There are a lot of options to choose from and the competition is fierce. Here are a few for your consideration (in no specific order):
- InVintory from InVintory Wines – A father & son duo: Jeff Daiter couldn’t find bottles in his cellar, and one night, while searching in frustration, he asked his son, Josh – a software developer – to build him a simple app to easily track and find his wines.
- VinoCell from VinoDev – A group of French developers and wine enthusiasts from the South of France have put together an app that syncs up a database of 5 million wines from around the world, and growing!
- CellarTracker from Eric leVine – CellarTracker was originally created in March 2003 by Eric LeVine as a way to keep track of his own cellar. Today, the app accounts for 4.5 million wines worldwide and 800,000 users. This is the app I decided to use for my collection.
- Vivino From Vivino aPs – Vivino is arguably the largest wine cellar manager on the list, with a database of 18 million wines and close to 70 million users! The company will sell you the wine and help you organize it in your collection. Not a bad business model.
- Wine Cellar Manager from Tech Apps UG – From Northern Switzerland, these guys are the real deal. The user interface is very slick and offers lots of well-thought-of features. Oh, and they have a tvOS version of the app. How cool is that?!
Pick The One App That Fits Your Needs
The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve only listed the ones that I find interesting and attractive but there are so many more wine cellar organizer apps. When doing your own research, you might come across My Wines, Oeno by Vintec, CellarEye, Oeni, eSommelier from Vintage Cellars, etc. The list is endless. So much so that they might be running out of ways to name them!
Most of those apps will offer a free subscription. While the free version will restrict you to a few bottles, their advanced subscription will grant unlimited access to all the features, and as many bottles as you can store. Subscriptions will vary in price but they usually average around $5 to $10 per month. So depending on the size of your collection, it might be money well spent for peace of mind, and the the reassurance that you will never miss that drinking window.
Wine Without Whine and stay on top of your wine collection! Download one of those apps today and let me know which one you chose.
Cheers!