When Was the Last Time You Did an Inventory?

Went to find some bottles today at my offsite storage and couldn’t find a couple. It possible I drank them, so now I’m thinking I need to do an inventory. I use Cellartracker and thought I was pretty conscientious about deleting bottles, but apparently not. I have about 700 or so, and half are in wine boxes offsite and others are in tubing I installed.

I guess I’ll either print out a list and map it that way or maybe I will bring in an iPad and mark them off that way. Going to be an ugly process either way. Anyone else do this recently? Any tips?

EXCELLENT question!!! I’ve often thought about posting something similar, as I know my CT is off. Bottles go opened/gifted that aren’t noted in CT, and I’ve had a few surprises over the years of wines I completely forgot about.

I did a semi-inventory when we moved to our current home in November of 2015, but I know I’m already off in my count. Even though I only have about half your cellar, it seems like a massive undertaking. Even just my small offsite storage is overwhelming to consider.

how could you make it into an ipad list? Would be fantastic to be able to import the CT info into a checklist on the ipad

That’s exactly what I was contemplating! Maybe Eric would consider an inventory function similar to that someday. Otherwise, I was thinking of exporting the list to Excel and just highlighting each wine as I go through it.

Btw, you still playing at the Master Chorale occasionally, haven’t seen you in a while there?

I do this once a year.

On CellarTracker go to the “Classic Mode”

Under Common tasks check Wine List

Under Wine List there are several options for inventory check lists that are really useful.

My CellarTracker “Cellar Inventory” is so incorrect. I think it’s been since 2007 that a thorough count has been conducted.

I have added a random bottle here and there, but many of my bottles were gifted away, consumed, etc.

I would need to almost start all over.

Easter Sunday (next week) is my day for a restack and inventory at my offsite.

Personal wines…ironically never.

I did an inventory a few years back when I sold a few hundred bottles (was determined to scale down). Haven’t even thought about it since.

I last re-did mine at the offsite when I moved from cardboard boxes to Weinboxes a little over a year ago. I took my laptop and barcode scanner down there, and scanned stuff into a spreadsheet. I would first scan a Weinbox (each has its own barcode label as a bin tag), and then scan the bottles that I was removing from cardboard boxes and putting into the Weinbox. So I ended up with a list that had the bin and then a list of bottle ids in that location. Then when I got home, I went into CT, moved all the stuff that was supposed to be at the offsite into a temporary holding location, and went through the spreadsheet bin-by-bin, pasting in the list of bottle IDs and relocating them into the new bin. Anything remaining in the temporary CT location when I was done was “missing and presumed drunk.”

Since then, I’ve been very meticulous about making sure I mark stuff that comes and goes from the offsite. All of my packages go to the offsite, so my process is that before I go pick up the packages, I print out bottle labels for everything that has arrived, and put them into a temporary location in CT. Then as I unpack the packages and put the bottles away, I’ll use my phone to take pictures of which bottles are going where (generally, everything from a single trip will fit in one or two weinboxes, so it’s not a lot of work). When I get home, I update CT. I could probably do this all in one step with the CT app, but I find it a little bit clunky with my super long bin IDs (my fault) and not being able to scan the bin labels to enter them quickly. It’s just easier to do it on my laptop or desktop at home.

At the house, I try to be religious about scanning bottles with the CT app as soon as I open them, but I’m not always great at it. I also try to double-check right before the bottles go into the recycle. Between those two steps, it stays pretty accurate. It’s fairly easy to audit the Le Cache because every slot (which I use as a bin in CT) can only hold two bottles. So I can quickly eyeball anything weird. Any bin that shows more than two bottles in CT is probably wrong, and I can skim the list of bins that should have zero or one, and compare them to what exists in reality. But thus far it hasn’t really been a problem.

I’m sure my system isn’t perfect, but after going through the pain of inventory effectively twice (first when I bought my Le Cache, and secondly with the cardboard to Weinbox transition), I am highly incentivized to keep it from drifting too far out of date…

I have to keep a close inventory because I have large numbers of cases at three sites, only one of which I get access too regularly. Despite my best efforts, mistakes crop up all the time, either because I forget to record things or list wines in the wrong place, or or because the commercial storage place I use messes up. I just inventoried the stuff in one friend’s basement, because I knew there were mistakes, and I’m in the middle of a big reconciliation with the storage company because some cases were misnumbered 10 years ago, causing a cascade of errors over time that I only discovered much later.

Oct 29th 2016. Time to inventory the cellar again! - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers
I didn’t learn my lesson either.

It is constant. As I am in the wine business, I have professional storage which keeps my inventory online. I pay for it, of course, but two sites make it easier for me. Bonded storage is a requirement for ITB.

My personal cellar contains many vintages of my own Black Cat label, plus stuff I purchase or am gifted. No method to the madness there. For tax purposes, I need to account for business inventory annually.

But the guy who was photographing my neighbor’s property the other day? I reached into my stuff and gave him a bottle. Two bottles out to a colleague. No records. But about every 2-3 weeks I move stuff around and take note of what I have. So pretty much constantly inventorying, but not actively tracking.

I am usually pretty good, but once or twice a year I go into all the Domaine 12-pack boxes that are listed as having 13 or 11 bottles and check them…

CellarTracker - daily!

Eleven years ago, before the movers took it across the country.

I usually do it once a year.

I always find a couple input errors on my end that I would never notice without a real inventory (wrong quantity, wrong vintage, etc). And while I am pretty good about entering orders and checking in shipments when they arrive, and usually remember to mark bottles as consumed, my hard inventory is always off from CT . . . lots of “missing and presumed drunk” boxes get checked!

Just this past snowday

man i so need to take inventory…i know my ct is way off :frowning: last time i took any inventory was when i moved my offsite storage which has been over 10 yrs. ugh

About 2 years ago when I imported everything into CT. I am unrelenting in my tracking. All spent bottles go into a row next to my computer where they are marked drank and I have a special area for incoming wines that have not been entered yet. They are never moved until they are entered. I find being diligent saves tons of time in having to inventory regularly.

Sean

“But it’s computerized…it CAN’T be wrong!” [stirthepothal.gif]