Organizing Your Cellar

[dananne]

We recently finished moving our wines from an older, fading unit into a new 400 bottle Vinotemp credenza-style unit. From my experience, there are two things to keep in mind. First, most Burgundy and Oregon Pinot Noir, as well as Chateauneuf-du-Pape, don't fit the racking. Thus, I was forced to take out one of the racking units and just stack. Second, organizing by region/varietal works OK, but make sure you put the ones meant to age behind the ones meant to drink sooner if you're going 2-deep. I ended up having to redo mine, as I kept having to remove bottles to get at the ones behind them. Stupid, I know, but I didn't plan well enough in advance, and I didn't want the wines sitting out while I decided what to put where. So, of course, they ended up sitting out later when I restocked everything. This was especially true for the stuff stacked on top of the shelving, as often more than one bottle needs to be moved to get at the stuff behind and/or below.