For us there can be no greater reward than when articles such as the following are written. The three of us put a huge amount of personal time and commitment into making Cellar! the program that it is today and will become tomorrow. When we see articles like this, it makes all of our efforts seem worthwhile.
This article appeared in The ComputorEdge Online Magazine.
The Author is Ed Rasimus and he can be reached at
One of the best things you can do with a computer is keep track of stuff. Cataloging and sorting large collections of almost anything is easy, and even if you aren’t into database design, there are plenty of excellent applications available in the shareware world that merely require that you enter your information to take full advantage of the power.
Probably my favorite application of database software has been wine cellar management. Sure, you can keep track of your collection of ante-bellum, rural American wooden widgets with a computer database, but it isn’t as much fun as conducting the relevant research of acquiring, managing and, most importantly, tasting your wine collection. There are all sorts of details to log such as wineries, varietals, regions, appellations, vintages, costs and tasting notes. You can track your collection’s value, monitor the development of the wine, maybe even scan and organize the labels.
There’s no shortage of wine cellar software, but my favorite for personal use has been Cellar! for at least the last six years. Recently I had the opportunity to upgrade to the newest version, 3.1, which finally makes the transition to 32-bit software. Based on the MS Jet database engine that drives Access, Cellar! has always offered a powerful relational database with incredible sorting, filtering and searching capability. The question was where could the program go that would provide increased functionality that wasn’t simply extraneous bells and whistles? I’ve seen too many programs bloat with animations and graphics that really were little more than pasted-in excess.
The answer is networking. Cellar! remains a powerful database with quick conversion of your older version records to the new format, or import of your data from whatever other application you’ve been using to keep track of your bottles. The big upgrade, however, is the ability to share your information with other wine lovers. A simple click on the Cellar! Online button lets you exchange information from your notes on wines that you’ve collected and tasted with literally thousands of other users. Find a new wine and want to make sure you’ve got all the information necessary to properly catalog the winery? Sure, you could search the label and painstakingly enter the name, address, phone, ZIP and region, assuming that you could find it. But, with Cellar! Online, you now can have the software query the master database and automatically update your local winery table records. You’ll seldom acquire a bottle that won’t already have Cellar! info available.
Been doing a bit of research on wines? Maybe you’ve found some informative Web sites or stored some links to winery home pages. You can quickly share your records with other users of the program with just a mouse click. A visit to the developer home page at www.cellarwinesoftware.com/index.html will show the latest count of shared wine records, wineries, tasting notes and downloads of the trial software.
Of course, there is still plenty of local, unshared control of your data. You can sort your records on virtually any field, enter data with bar code scans, share your PC records with your PDA, and generate tables, graphs and data summaries of your collection. Configurability is incredible with plenty of power to organize on country of origin, region/DOC, varietals or, maybe, price. The overview table lets you see if wines are white or red, whether they are ready to drink or may need a bit of age, and where they came from. When you consume a bottle, you can easily grade it or add detailed tasting notes. The multi-page record of each wine offers opportunity to enter as much or as little data as you wish.
The real power of the program is online. Not everyone will be eager to exchange Cellar! data, and that’s fine. You can still benefit from the Web links. Want to check a vintage chart? Maybe you need a definition from the wine encyclopedia? How about a rating from Wine Spectator or Wine Enthusiast? Or maybe you want to check the latest auction prices on rare and fine wines? It’s all at your fingertips. Best of all, as you use the program, you will be building an increasing collection of links to information about wines, wineries, values and experiences.
You can download a demo of Cellar! from the Web page, and you can register the software for $49.95. For most of us, that’s the cost of a couple of bottles of wine. Once you’ve started using the software, you’ll be amazed at the way the program broadens your wine enjoyment. If you will be entering a tasting note, you’ll take a few moments longer to consider the flavors and experiences. When some time has gone by, you’ll find yourself toggling the “zero balance” button to look back at wines that you’ve enjoyed over the past months and years, even if you no longer have them in your cellar. Five bottles or 500, you’ll enjoy your wine more with Cellar!
