Hi all - I know that this has been discussed many times on this forum, but I can't find any really recent threads. Would love to know what people are using these days.
I have a dedicated cellar with just over 1,000 bottles of wine. I'm currently using cellar! and generally speaking I find it pretty good, albeit a bit cumbersome at times. I find the ageing profile feature to be too complex, I don't have the patience to enter five or six data points for each wine. I do like the shared tasting notes feature. Also I can rarely get the auction values stuff working correctly. Most importantly, I don't feel like the software provides a good way to summarize my cellar by wine type, vintage, etc.
For nearly eight years I was doing software reviews for Ziff-Davis Online Software Library (ZDNet). One of the categories I was responsible for was food/wine. Of the twenty or more wine databases I reviewed during those years, the one that I chose for my personal use was Cellar! It offers all of the power, sorting, searching and support features I need. Over the cycle of several updates it has kept pace with the evolving underlying Access DB file changes and it has done the best job I've seen of integrating online information sources.
I assume you've got a recent version of the software--latest is 3.4.9 and can be downloaded with just a click from the C!Online menu. You'll also find the latest auction files through the download menu.
As for the tedium of adjusting profiles, you should be able to set some standard profiles for quick entry rather than manually tweaking the graphs for a each wine.
The shared TNs are great and I've used them regularly to determine if a wine I'm considering purchasing is really what the adverts say it is. I also like the online access to the winery info--entering a wine into the database which isn't already listed in the winery files is as simple as a quick online query which brings up a detailed listing of the wineries to consider.
As for cellar summaries, the search options are pretty extensive but readily accessible through a right click menu on any factor in the table listing. Sorts are fast and can be kept for future recall, such as all Burgundy or all California or whatever.
The only other software I still see regularly is the Robert Parker package, but it is considerably more expensive and most users complain about a heavy-handed overlay of the Parker taste preferences.
Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"
'Any input'? Are you sure? My own cellar is modest compared to your 1000 bottles. I don't need software because I keep notes in a book and on the bottles with a fine tipped chalk/ Posca type pen. I also have the brain of Mysterio X Einstein and the memory of a god. Also, while my judgement is informed by other peoples experience, my own
*taste it and work out when it'll be best* has proved best method for realising optimum cellaring. I suggest that if you can't do this then you might be cellaring more than you can properly cope with. I also suggest that I might be just a bit jealous. In good humour and with a little seriousness. Sammy
I am definitely cellaring more that I can properly cope with...there is no question about that! But I'm having a lot of fun doing it.
I spent some time yesterday fooling around with cellar! and got it to do most of what I needed. I will try plugging in some standardized drinking profiles as suggested above. I'm sure that will save time.
I still do find the auction data feature a bit cumbersome but I guess it's serviceable.
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