I was part of a hotel that had a similar problem in the past, they didn't have numbers on the list but had a list in the cellar with numbers on, and then use a very small freezer label on the end of the capuse with the number on it. so that staff just knew to look for that number and then peel it of before taking front of house.
Dimwit question about finding wine
- Thread starter AJ Temple
- Start date
- Location
- Perth, Australia
Yes, this was going to be my suggestion too. I have a number of wine fridges and keep excel spreadsheets in order to locate specific wines. Initially that was exact to position in the fridge but usually I find that exact to a specific shelf is enough for my home needs as things get moved around and replaced.
Of course, that is because I'm the usual organiser and finder of the wines for dinner and not others who perhaps aren't as familiar with what certain bottles look like. The only issue is sometimes forgetting to delete the wines after drinking them!!
Good luck with it and hope it works out.
Cheers
Dave
- Location
- Chiang Mai
I wouldn't discount CT quite so easily - it's a wonderful tool used by many, if not most, forumites and it is an option to be free to use.
The insiders tip is to use the classic mode, thoroughly unstylish but oh so functional, and you will see many notes posted the forum via that channel.
- Location
- Kent & Köln
Thanks Alex. I did have a really good look at it and signed up to explore. I will not be using it. Various of the T&Cs put me off - very typical US legal wording for example clause 2 "THE SERVICE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR CANCELLATION AT CELLARTRACKER'S SOLE DISCRETION AND WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU." Their caps.
I don't like the indemnity and associated clauses much nor the fact that they own and can use as they wish things that you write and that they are public.
They prohibit commercial use and multiple log ins (which impairs the scanning app), though they make provision for limited restaurant use as a subscription model. It seems to fully prohibit use for retail (non-restaurant) sales. It will churn out a wine list but not in a format that I want to use (the website examples for restaurants by traditional or varietal are super basic) and does not appear to facilitate direct export of a formatted list into a web page. Obviously the latter can be done with additional steps and adobe or whatever, but that is just extra work for me. Old style bar codes are of no interest to me: if I want that I'll generate QRs but see no need for it now.
It has no functionality for the software to generate customer bills, or be plugged directly into accounting software. It has no UK VAT accounting functionality within the structure which is fair enough as that is of no interest to most users and it is US centric anyway. There is no continuity of service warranty, even with the subscription model apparently.
So....I can do a SQL database easily myself and flow it into Excel, or just do the whole lot in Excel as there are not many data fields really, and write a simple script that pulls the sale data into a customer bill and the accounts software simultaneously on FIFO, LIFO or whatever I want, and I can extract the Excel data using pivot tables into our wine list graphics software, and I can do this in both English and German (the latter is useful to us).
Cellar Tracker is clearly potentially useful as a public and shared source of tasting notes and I can see that for many collectors it is a brilliant cellar tool. I'm not knocking it but have concluded that it's not for us.
I don't like the indemnity and associated clauses much nor the fact that they own and can use as they wish things that you write and that they are public.
They prohibit commercial use and multiple log ins (which impairs the scanning app), though they make provision for limited restaurant use as a subscription model. It seems to fully prohibit use for retail (non-restaurant) sales. It will churn out a wine list but not in a format that I want to use (the website examples for restaurants by traditional or varietal are super basic) and does not appear to facilitate direct export of a formatted list into a web page. Obviously the latter can be done with additional steps and adobe or whatever, but that is just extra work for me. Old style bar codes are of no interest to me: if I want that I'll generate QRs but see no need for it now.
It has no functionality for the software to generate customer bills, or be plugged directly into accounting software. It has no UK VAT accounting functionality within the structure which is fair enough as that is of no interest to most users and it is US centric anyway. There is no continuity of service warranty, even with the subscription model apparently.
So....I can do a SQL database easily myself and flow it into Excel, or just do the whole lot in Excel as there are not many data fields really, and write a simple script that pulls the sale data into a customer bill and the accounts software simultaneously on FIFO, LIFO or whatever I want, and I can extract the Excel data using pivot tables into our wine list graphics software, and I can do this in both English and German (the latter is useful to us).
Cellar Tracker is clearly potentially useful as a public and shared source of tasting notes and I can see that for many collectors it is a brilliant cellar tool. I'm not knocking it but have concluded that it's not for us.
- Location
- NW England
Bravo for selling so many rieslings in a night.
Domestically, I've used neck labels, but they only work when the bottles are neck outwards, and like you I have many bottles facing inwards, primarily for balance and cramming more in. I wonder if a white paint pen would work, if a chinagraph pencil won't? I think I have one or two made by Edding somewhere (though it's probably easier to find a wine, than a pen I bought 30-40 years ago!).
Domestically, I've used neck labels, but they only work when the bottles are neck outwards, and like you I have many bottles facing inwards, primarily for balance and cramming more in. I wonder if a white paint pen would work, if a chinagraph pencil won't? I think I have one or two made by Edding somewhere (though it's probably easier to find a wine, than a pen I bought 30-40 years ago!).
- Location
- Deep South of Cambridgeshire
I guess one could apply a strip of masking tape to the bottom and write on that? Perhaps with a securing strip around the base.
- Location
- Kent & Köln
I have catering sticky labels for the fridges and freezers. They should work fine. They are water soluble but survive the food fridges and freezers so I would think they would be fine in the humidity and temp controlled wine fridges. I did put neck labels on everything originally, which took ages, but the girls don't like that as they still had to hunt around for the wine reading loads of labels. And now I have to put at least some bottles in neck first as otherwise they slide out like slippery eels. The team can't go through over 300 bottles in fridges. So I am dealing with it.
- Location
- Trouillas, France
Even if you do come up with a decent database and an easy means for your wife and helper to find the bottles quickly, I still think it would make a lot of sense to reduce the offering. Pick the 50 wines that you want to sell and offer those, then replace them as they run out.
- Location
- Kent & Köln
I do understand that point of view and I agree it would make sense to some. However, when I look at what we have actually sold since I became fully licensed, nearly all of it is fine wines that I would not have expected to sell at the outset. We have to consider our customer base which includes lots of local businesses who book us out fully and hold board gatherings and client meetings here, two regular luncheon clubs who are wine enthusiasts (and usually come for dinner despite their name) and lots of birthday and anniversary celebrations. We have a handful of wedding celebrations booked in despite not making any attempt to target that market as we thought we are too small. Those who choose a bespoke tasting menu also often like to have wines suggested. In practice, the list I thought we would sell (lower priced accessible wines) is not what people tend to order. The list is organised in such a way that what we might call fine wines have their own section.
We have aperitifs and cocktails, by the glass, champagnes (about 15 I think), sparkling and pink, general whites, our specialism of German whites, general reds, fine Bordeaux and some Burgundy, desert wines (only about 8) and digestifs. Edit: oh, and of course alcohol free red, white and sparkling. It's surprising what people go for. It's actually good fun having different and unusual things on the list and they will only sell if people know we have them.
We also find that quite a few guests like to leave their cars with us so they can drink and pick the cars up the next day (we are super secure). Oddly enough it is the business meetings that tend to go for this.
We are very much learning and nothing is cast in stone, so we can always adapt and change.
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- Location
- Deep South of Cambridgeshire
A shame you're not closer!
- Location
- London
Very dry indeed, I presume.
- Location
- Chiang Mai
Grainy tannins.
- Location
- Chiang Mai
Very comprehensive!
Obviously it downloads to Excel so having one doesn't actually preclude the other to personalise. I was thinking the ability to avoid typos and have correct wine info would be useful - I can name the number of typo free wine lists I've seen on one hand - and noting some of the other comments/plans you've made the barcode facility would work very well.
- Location
- Kent & Köln
The barcode GS1 standard is changing though to QR by 2027 (so they say). Realistically we have no ambition or desire to do a great deal more turnover than we are doing now so we don't have the volume or complexity that a much bigger establishment would have, we don't do walk ins really, and I only want to cook 4 days a week and not every week at that (as we go to Germany and Netherlands pretty often). So its not worth us investing in barcode readers and printers when the tech is about to be superseded.
I agree typo avoidance is a good thing. So is avoidance of onerous T&Cs
Once the data is in my system it will not suddenly develop typos and I already had an accurate wine list, just in Word which just copies straight across to the database.
Today so far I have written all of the necessary code to do the billing and accounts export. As well as made wild garlic butter (we have a surfeit of wild garlic and parsley) and two fine lemon tarts. Not supposed to be a work day today!
I agree typo avoidance is a good thing. So is avoidance of onerous T&Cs
Once the data is in my system it will not suddenly develop typos and I already had an accurate wine list, just in Word which just copies straight across to the database. Today so far I have written all of the necessary code to do the billing and accounts export. As well as made wild garlic butter (we have a surfeit of wild garlic and parsley) and two fine lemon tarts. Not supposed to be a work day today!
- Location
- London
No such thing!
Have you tried it just blanched momentarily, well drained and buttered? it strikes me as the finest of all green vegetables and is not even slightly overpowering cooked thus.
- Location
- Kent & Köln
Yes. Indeed I have. I pick the stalks off as they can be bitter. Blanching improves it immeasurably as I find the leaves that grow in abundance in our kitchen garden quite strong and they can kill the palate. As well as butter I like to add a few drops of fresh lemon juice. In the wild garlic butter I add lemon zest and a good handful of freshly plucked parsley, some maldon salt and blitz it. It's super useful and can make small glossy quenelles. Can also go into a whipped cream gun and be turned into a very light foam that keeps its shape for ages.
- Location
- London
indeed! An under appreciated benefit of CT is that is a de facto canonical database of all wines. I store wine with Lay & Wheeler - the service is generally superb, but they occasionally do weird things with wines I send to them. In some cases the same wine has been described slightly differently when different cases were sent over. In some cases the name has been slightly off and they’ve put them in an entirely different region.
Indeed I think this is why el jefe @Don Reid insists on CT wine names being used for Wimps nominations.
With that said - @AJ Temple has already clearly explained that his goal here is to maximise happiness and serendipity, not operational convenience, so perhaps this is not helpful to him…
- Location
- London and Boston
It's still complete mayhem with the Jadot range though.
- Location
- Deep South of Cambridgeshire
It might be possible in Excel to do something clever to leverage the CT database. Actually, this is the kind of thing that my current project is very much related to. Mind you, there could be issues with IPR/T&Cs.
- Location
- Chiang Mai
It's funny you mention L&W as today I have a problem because a wine I've sold was uploaded incorrectly - along with dozens of others - and now they want me yet again to provide the original details. It's such a faff and a bit cheeky when paying for the service imo.
- Location
- Kent & Köln
Spot on and very insightful. We run our restaurant business because we like it, not because we need a job. We are very passionate about it and our guests, as we never do things by halves, but marital harmony is paramount. It also has to be an interesting journey.
Alex - I agree that it may well be possible to do something clever on the database and indeed it would not be difficult to do so. However, I suspect that the vast majority of users have not read the T&Cs (I started out in the law so I have), which are typical US onerous. They cover commercial use, and their ownership of IPR and limitations as to how it can be used.
I actually think that the database is great - but very out of date in terms of tech. It was developed in 2003 I think and the T&Cs have not been updated since 2019. The landscape has changed fundamentally. I think their app is rudimentary at best and the website is in major need of an overhaul if they seriously want to target the restaurant market - even one as tiddly as us. Some of the links are completely broken.
I think there is actually an opportunity to do what they do much better. These days businesses look for simple integration and that means the whole supply chain, storage, customer facing, invoicing, accounting and VAT etc. From what I have learned from many chats with other cooks or chefs "in the trade" over the last year, is that their systems are often archaic. In many cases they are trying to work around what a cheap POS system forces on them, rather than what their business and control systems really need. There is a reason why so many restaurants go bust, even with a good cook in the kitchen. However, that is a thread drift away from my original topic.