1) Look at your cellar as a whole and ask yourself how you would break up your collection. It could be by:
Old world and new world (This is the most common categorization and our recommendation)
Country (Each section of your cellar could house French, Italian, US, etc.)
Price (Keep your expensive bottles on one side, and cheaper wines on another)
Label color (Collectors prioritizing aesthetics often like to put all white labels together, all black labels together, so on and so forth)
2) Next, aim to place like-minded bottles together as it will be easier to bulk upload. This can include bottles of the same:
Producer
Vintage
3) If you have wooden cases, also consider where those will go. You may opt to place them either:
Wherever you have space (such as in a corner or on a shelf)
Wherever makes most sense according to your organization (eg. a case with French labels would go right under your French section)
4) Think about where your palate is going in the future and consider leaving extra space in those sections for future purchases or any allocations you know are coming in.
5) Place newer vintages that require aging in harder-to-reach places (such as back slots if your cellar has depth, or at the bottom of a bin). Place older, more ready to drink vintages in front. This will make your collection all the more accessible.
Alternatively, you can certainly inventory your bottles according to wherever they are currently laid out. That is the beauty of our platform. Even if your bottles fall into disarray and are not particularly organized in real life, you will always be able to find them still and filter through your virtual collection on any criteria.
We'd also be happy to connect you with an independent wine manager who can help consult you with this and depending on your location go in person and help complete this task.