In the April 2007 issue of the famous Decanter wine magazine, one of the world's most popular wine magazine, which is printed in several languages, Margaret Rand writes an article about cellar management software. While she is definitely not too comfortable with computers and appears a little bit overwhelmed and if not somewhat doubtful about the usefulness of several features offered by these software, she does agree that more and more wine lovers are using them and that they are indeed helpful.

Overall, Cellar! ranks first with the highest score of the software reviewed in this article, for both database, online facility and encyclopedia. On this last subject, she spent a good amount of time (and writing) and concludes that the encyclopedia part of these software are almost all very poor, except for the positive note on Cellar!'s audio pronunciations which are "fun and accurate". Also, the article does not talk much of tasting notes management, an area where we know that Cellar! shines.

Here's a picture of the "BEST OF THE TESTS" conclusion section of the article.

The Decanter website can be reached here.

We would like to thank Margaret Rand and the staff at Decanter wine magazine for including Cellar! in their review, and for letting us show this section of the article on our website. Thank you also to Marc C., who once again promptly contacted us to let us know Cellar! was in this great magazine.

Michael Prinkus, head writer for the OntarioWineReview, performed a "true-life" analysis of Cellar!. He approached the review like any a regular wine lover in search of a tool to manage his cellar and tasting notes. Here's a quote from his article:

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"Cellar! gets my highest rating, and the more I learn about it, the better it gets … and trust me when I tell you, it can get quit addictive. Whether you have just a few bottles or a major cellar; a book containing a plethora of
tasting notes or a few simple notations on a napkin … Cellar! is here to help."

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You can view the entire newsletter here.

The OntarioWineReview website can be reached here.

The April 2005 issue of La Revue des Vins de France, published since the early 1930s, one of the most prestigious and widely distributed french magazine, was dedicated to wine cellaring, accessories and cellar management software. In a bunch of about 20 software reviewed, we were proud to discover that Cellar! was not only given the highest rating, but was listed very first!

Here's a scan of the article, as it appeared in the April 2005 edition of La Revue des Vins de France. Click on the image for a larger, more readable version (in french, of course).

We would like to thank the staff at La Revue des Vins de France for including Cellar! in their review, and for letting us show the article on our website. Thank you also to Marc C., who promptly contacted us to let us know Cellar! was in this great magazine.

Anthony Dias Blue, one the America's pemier wine writers recently did a three part series for the Robb Report magazine on wine collecting. As part of this report he had a section on "Cataloging the Collection". The following is a quote from that article.

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"Computer software has made the process of inventorying extensive collections much easier and more efficient than in the days of unwieldly cellar books. .............. "

"One of the most sophisticated of these programs is Cellar! (www.cellarwinesoftware.com), which wine collector Art Stratemeyer first designed and released in 1995 and has been continually enhanced."

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Mr. Blue has a website that all wine lovers should take the time to visit

The Robb Report Magazine focus's on the Luxury Lifestyle and their website is here.

Note: While it is accurate that I was the initial founder and architect of Cellar!, I would be remiss if I did not say that it was not until 2 years ago, when Guy and Bryan teamed up with me that Cellar! truly started to become the product it is today. Guy has been responsible for the great coding improvements of the program and Bryan implemented the innovative internet and sharing interactivity that is a totally unique feature of Cellar!. As a team, we take great pride in what Cellar! has become and what we believe it will be in the future - Art Stratemeyer

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 thunder421@earthlink.net

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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!

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