It’s a simple system; I start at the top, and keep filling, one bottle at a time.  But how do I handle wine bottle rotation?

An alternate system would be to number each spot on your wine rack, and the bottles could be placed in a spot, and your database would keep track of the “hole in the wall”, not the bottle number.

That system is too complicated for me, and I’m always afraid I’ll lose track of a bottle.  My system is simple.  However, a simple numerical system has one big disadvantage: empty holes.

Empty Spots in the Wine Rack

After a few months or regular wine drinking, there are lots of empty spots in the wine rack.  In my case, most of my wine deliveries occur either in the spring or fall.  I live in Canada, and overseas wineries do most of their wine shipping during the moderate temperature months, during the mild spring or fall, not during the heat of the summer, or the freezing cold of the winter, since the wine would be more likely to spoil.

So, at the end of a long winter, before many of the new shipments arrive, I’ve got lots of empty space.  Here’s what I did this year:

First, I looked in my wine inventory database and marked every wine bottle remaining that should be consumed this year.  I moved all of those bottles to a separate section of my basement wine cellar.  They will be easy to find, and since I they won’t be around a year from now, I won’t have to move them again.  I made three sections; one each for reds, whites, and rosé.  Each wine is arranged numerically in it’s section.

Wine Rack with all spaces filled

Then, I took the remaining wines, and moved them to their appropriate place, to fill up all of the holes.

As you can see, all spaces are now filled, and all wine bottle tags are easily visible.

I thought about creating another section for wines that are intended for “laying down”, that will be cellared for five or more years, so that they would not need to be moved again next year.  I don’t have that many bottles, so I decided to keep it simple.  I have one section for “drink this year” wines, and all of the rest are arranged in numerical order.

My plan is to fill the holes by moving up the bottles twice a year: once in the spring when the new shipments arrive, and once in the Fall as more shipments arrive, and I get ready for a long winter.  That’s my wine bottle rotation plan.