I came across this cellar system a few days ago and have been wondering whether to buy it.
http://www.intelliscanner.com/products/ ... tures.html
The beauty for me is that this system works with Mac and iphone (for the future).
It seems really cool actually, but wouldn't want to spend $300 to find that it's not!
Anyone have any experience?
This looks interesting...
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Matthew Moate
- Posts: 76
- Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:15 am
- Location: Adelaide
This was my reply on *Forum to a thread on cellar inventory systems that contained a post about this.
"Using the bottle barcode has limited usefulness, probably doesn't even include vintage in the information that may or may not be available in the database for a particular wine. Also it doesn't uniquely identify the bottle in your cellar and you can't just scan the bottle to record drinking/moving etc., only the custom-printed labels provide the full functionality.
Visualising racks is fine for smallish collection stored in regular racks, mine (and many cellars I've seen) have an eclectic mix of all sorts of storage, from single-bottle format racks to bins with various shapes and numbers of bottles plus cartons/boxes stacked in numerous types of shelving configurations.
I looked at adding a barcoding facility to my system, but I personally didn't want it and it seemed odd for people to have to fork out maybe $100+ for a device to use a minor feature in free software.
From a quick look at My Wine Assistant, the data items available look pretty limited.
Internet based cellar systems have their attractions, but to me the availability of tasting notes or recommendations from people whose palates I don't know isn't one of them."
The system depends on the database of barcode info, it's not inherent in the barcode, that's just a number, I don't know if a database for Aus wines is readily available.
My take: Spend your money on wine, not gimmicks.
"Using the bottle barcode has limited usefulness, probably doesn't even include vintage in the information that may or may not be available in the database for a particular wine. Also it doesn't uniquely identify the bottle in your cellar and you can't just scan the bottle to record drinking/moving etc., only the custom-printed labels provide the full functionality.
Visualising racks is fine for smallish collection stored in regular racks, mine (and many cellars I've seen) have an eclectic mix of all sorts of storage, from single-bottle format racks to bins with various shapes and numbers of bottles plus cartons/boxes stacked in numerous types of shelving configurations.
I looked at adding a barcoding facility to my system, but I personally didn't want it and it seemed odd for people to have to fork out maybe $100+ for a device to use a minor feature in free software.
From a quick look at My Wine Assistant, the data items available look pretty limited.
Internet based cellar systems have their attractions, but to me the availability of tasting notes or recommendations from people whose palates I don't know isn't one of them."
The system depends on the database of barcode info, it's not inherent in the barcode, that's just a number, I don't know if a database for Aus wines is readily available.
My take: Spend your money on wine, not gimmicks.
Cheers
Brian
Life's too short to drink white wine and red wine is better for you too! :-)
Brian
Life's too short to drink white wine and red wine is better for you too! :-)
Thanks for comments on this.
Matthew, they say they provide tags for any wine that isn't barcoded. One of main concerns was that none of the smaller producers that I like to acquire from may be included in the database and/or don't use barcodes. Actually barcodes are one thing I never take measure of on a bottle of wine, so have no idea how widely they are used/unused.
Brian, I was hoping you would add your wisdom here. Unfortunately I have zero experience with using spreadsheets or cellar programs. I would have downloaded yours yonks ago if I was on a pc. You make a few what seem like excellent comments esp. to do with the un-uniform racking system.
I am not so worried about the universal tasting notes as I don't bother to use this sort of thing either, not only for the same reason that you state but also for the same reason that I don't bother buying any of the wine review books. I don't give a fig what anybody else thinks of or rates a wine, I never buy without first tasting or having a good knowledge of the producer followed by vintage. Auctions are too full of recommended wines that the buyer didn't like upon tasting!
Probably my main reason for never using any cellar programs is that I am too disorganised to methodically record everything, this is where a quick zap with a gadget is quite appealing. Mind you, over the years I have been culling a lot of the cheaper every day wines out of the cellar to make way for less but better quality, so I have a fairly good idea of whats in there and whats drinking. However I would like to start electronically recording my TN's, a bit like Ric does on his blackberry.
Remember, you are talking to the gadget man.
Cheers
Glen
Matthew, they say they provide tags for any wine that isn't barcoded. One of main concerns was that none of the smaller producers that I like to acquire from may be included in the database and/or don't use barcodes. Actually barcodes are one thing I never take measure of on a bottle of wine, so have no idea how widely they are used/unused.
Brian, I was hoping you would add your wisdom here. Unfortunately I have zero experience with using spreadsheets or cellar programs. I would have downloaded yours yonks ago if I was on a pc. You make a few what seem like excellent comments esp. to do with the un-uniform racking system.
I am not so worried about the universal tasting notes as I don't bother to use this sort of thing either, not only for the same reason that you state but also for the same reason that I don't bother buying any of the wine review books. I don't give a fig what anybody else thinks of or rates a wine, I never buy without first tasting or having a good knowledge of the producer followed by vintage. Auctions are too full of recommended wines that the buyer didn't like upon tasting!
Probably my main reason for never using any cellar programs is that I am too disorganised to methodically record everything, this is where a quick zap with a gadget is quite appealing. Mind you, over the years I have been culling a lot of the cheaper every day wines out of the cellar to make way for less but better quality, so I have a fairly good idea of whats in there and whats drinking. However I would like to start electronically recording my TN's, a bit like Ric does on his blackberry.
My take: Spend your money on wine, not gimmicks.
Remember, you are talking to the gadget man.
Cheers
Glen