How to Organize Your Wine Collection

You’ve finally begun to build a collection worth that name. A few of your bottles sit in the pantry in the coolest and darkest spot you can find, a few more are in the refrigerator, a few more are on the counter…In short, your wine collection is beginning to take over your world. By taking the time to organize your wine, not only will the kitchen begin to reemerge, but each time you go to find that perfect wine, you’ll be in and out as fast as can be.

The Location

If you’re creating a cellar of some sort, which need not be a massive building project, place it as far down in your home as possible. If that’s in the basement, all the better. If not, then the lowest point you can reach inside your house, where it will remain reasonably cool and dark. Store the bottles on their side, not only for easy access but to ensure that any corks retain contact with the wine, thus remaining moist.

The Actual Process

Now that you have a space in which to organize, the task itself comes up. What wines you own will determine how organized you must be. If you have only a few bottles of wine for day to day drinking, then perhaps you need to just divide them in a logical way, such as red and white, sparkling and blush. If you have a few cases of wine, then you need something more.

Have you purchased any wines with the purpose of aging them? Push those to the back of the cellar you have constructed. The farther they are out of easy reach, the less likely you are to break them open for a sample before they attain their peak. To keep track of any which you have purchased for day to day drinking, you will need a log of some sort, whether on a computer, on a mobile phone, or even in a notebook sitting in your cellar. Keeping track of which bottles were purchased when, how old those in the aging process are, which have already been drunk, and which need to be consumed will greatly simplify what could be an ordeal.

Wine collecting can be a very expensive hobby. Even purchasing good quality wine for normal consumption can cost a pretty penny for those interested in top notch varieties. After parting with a bit of money, no one wants a bottle to go bad because it has been missed, or to drink a phenomenal bottle with a meal it does not complement because it was in an unexpected place. Keep your wines organized, and such problems will never arise.

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