Split location storage challenges

[uncle tom]

I am lucky enough to have a proper cellar underneath my house, so unlike many people here, do not have the imperative to split cases between a home wine fridge and a remote storage facility.

However for a few years now I've been doing this for unfortified wines, partly to maintain a wider range at home, and partly to liberate more space for port.

For the past couple of years I've realised that I need to extend this to port, in order to find space for a wider range of my younger stock, but there's an issue..

Whereas with port, my stock control is well buttoned down, the added complexity of having a case of wine split between two locations with two stock quantities, seems very prone to accidental stock errors - even though on the face of it, it seems quite straightforward.

To tackle this I've come up with a solution to organise things a little better - I'd be interested to know how others address this.

My solution is:

1) Limit the number of bottles from a split case kept at home to a maximum of four.

2) Maintain the reserve stock as a multiple of four bottles.

3) When the home stock is exhausted but not yet replenished, mark the home store location code as 'Vacant'.

This then allows an automatic spreadsheet computation of how many bottles are where, simply by knowing the total number consumed.

To tell the computer that a case is split, I flag the case with the letter 'B' standing for basket, as I use four bottle wicker baskets to transport loose bottles. So I refer to them now as 'basket cases'.

- Does anyone have a better way of stock controlling split cases? The choice of multiples of four is convenient for me - it could just as easily be two or three.

[Andy Velebil]

I use CellarTracker to track what location they are at. So either home cellar, offsite and what locker in the offsite. It’s customizable so you can set it to a single box or down to the exact bottle spot (such as row 1, slot F). Or whatever you name it. Very easy to use program and works great for keeping track of what I have and where.

I also generally keep young stuff that I know I won’t touch for a long time in the offsite, at the back/bottom of the stack so I don’t have to move them if looking for something else in the storage bin. Keeping young stuff at home that won’t be consumed for years needlessly takes up valuable home space.

[uncle tom]

I use CellarTracker to track what location they are at.

Whilst I find CellarTracker a very useful resource when I want to find out, in ball park terms, what most people think of a widely marketed wine; I've never uploaded my stock inventory to it, or played with its less obvious tools.

Aside from recording tasting notes and condition reports, I find the ability to sort stock against it's last inspection date to be very important, especially when bottles give some cause for concern, and go on what I call the 'Watch list'

[Andy Velebil]

I use CellarTracker to track what location they are at.

Whilst I find CellarTracker a very useful resource when I want to find out, in ball park terms, what most people think of a widely marketed wine; I've never uploaded my stock inventory to it, or played with its less obvious tools.

Aside from recording tasting notes and condition reports, I find the ability to sort stock against it's last inspection date to be very important, especially when bottles give some cause for concern, and go on what I call the 'Watch list'

CT has way more features than I care to use. I generally only use it for where and what my inventory is, what current prices are for things I’m looking at buying and my own notes for later review when needed.

[PhilW]

- Does anyone have a better way of stock controlling split cases? The choice of multiples of four is convenient for me - it could just as easily be two or three.

I have a method by which I effectively manage subsets of a purchase, which seems similar to your issue; describing in case it helps.
Essentially I provide an index per purchase, whether this happens to be a single bottle, a case, or a mixed auction lot; all bottles from that lot effectively receive that ID. Against that ID, in addition to what, where from, how much, I also note (a) how many there were in total originally, (b) how many in "this batch" originally, and how many remain, where each of those figures relate to a specific wine. The ability to subset/batch like this is useful for several purposes, including when some is held locally and some in off-site store, but also for when some is mine and some belongs to someone else (e.g. a joint purchase where I still have their own bottles pending physical transfer, as well as my own).

Not sure it may help or give ideas - perhaps simplest to show by example:
- I purchase at auction a lot comprising a case of F85 and six bottles of Dow 83; I have put half the Fonseca into storage, and keep half locally along with the Dow, and I have drunk two of the F85s, and 1 D83 so far.
- In a second purchase, I buy 4 bottles of Offley '70 jointly with yourself to be shared equally, but I have the bottles still; none have yet been drunk.

Lines in the current stock sheet, just the relevant bits :

Index  Remain#  Subset#  Total#    Wine   Other details...
 120        4        6      12     F85    (auction, cost, etc...)
 120        5        6       6     D83    (auction, cost, etc...)
 121        2        2       4     O70    (auction, cost, split with Tom, etc)

Holding for others:
 121        -        2       4     O70    (auction, cost, split with Tom, etc)
 
Off-site
 120        6        6      12     F85    (auction, cost, etc...)

There are many potential variations in the above (for example I have "Holding for others" subsection to both home storage and off-site storage, and they way I separate wine name vintage and type is ignored above for simplicity - the actual spreadsheet has more detail) but hopefully you get the idea.

Then, each time I drink a bottle I add a new line to the tasted sheet, and decrement the Remain# in the current stock sheet, removing the line once all bottles in the batch are gone.

Hope that helps.