Cellar diary

Anything to do with Port.
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

Might we have a photograph of your pine cupboard, please?
If I can remember how..

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=65 ... 5591415821
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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JacobH
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by JacobH »

I really like that. I might have to steal the idea, perhaps with slightly fewer bottles. I like that you have space to keep all the bits and pieces that accumulate.
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uncle tom
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

I really like that. I might have to steal the idea, perhaps with slightly fewer bottles. I like that you have space to keep all the bits and pieces that accumulate.
I found a guy on eBay making cupboards from reclaimed pine. The width was perfect, but his standard shelf height was too high to fit a bottle on the top shelf. I asked him if he could make me a special with a lower shelf, and he happily obliged.
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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nac
Fonseca 1980
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by nac »

uncle tom wrote: 14:53 Wed 22 Sep 2021 A case of Vesuvio '95 liberated from its case today, the case itself somewhat battered as it had long since been deprived of it's cardboard outer, so will go on the pub's kindling pile. But what to do with the pottery bin tag? Seems such a waste to bin it.
Our friend GEAG might be interested?
winesecretary
Fonseca 1980
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by winesecretary »

@ nac - Thank you, but GEAG's bin-label-collecting friend has the 1995...
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

October 3rd

I wanted to have a look at bottle 828A - a lone bottle of Sandeman '54 - or is it '34..? I've plenty of Sa34 but the '54 is rare and the capsule is a bit ambiguous. I wanted to have another look at the capsule to see if I could era date it. Computer said location code 06J18 - but there it was not..

I went into detective mode. Everyone puts bottles in the wrong place from time to time, having some systems in place to help trace errant bottles can be helpful.

Had it been drawn in a busy moment and consumed, with no record kept? Easily done. To guard against this I have two safeguards; first is the neck tag that is always cut off and put in a basket before the bottle is removed from the cellar. Until three years ago these tags had no dedicated home in the cellar. Very occasionally one might get mislaid. I then acquired a bottle that came complete with a pouring basket, which was effectively re-purposed as a tag repository. When did I last inspect this bottle? - last year. The introduction of the basket and lack of social events since it was last inspected made it very likely that it was still in the cellar - just somewhere else.

My second safeguard is that I forbid myself from entering the cellar unless sober. Spur of the moment, rule breaking excursions below stairs are not permitted.

So I checked the written record of the last inspection - no new storage location recorded - but did I forget to note it..?

My next tool was my rack mapping software, which maps the location of every bottle on to a spreadsheet matrices, and throws up alerts if two bottles appear to occupy the same spot. I've not run this tool for some time, and running it threw up two queries.

Errors resolved, I printed out maps of the racks to look for holes that should be empty - but were not.

This revealed my wayward bottle in position 07B04 - moved, but erroneously not recorded.

And is it 54 or 34? I'm still not sure. The wax capsule type I've seen before, but don't still own an example to compare it too. Annoying. I'll leave it booked as '54 until we next have a Sandeman vertical - if it turns out to be twenty years older than expected, I doubt many will grumble..
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
M.Charlton
Taylor’s LBV
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by M.Charlton »

uncle tom wrote: 21:35 Mon 04 Oct 2021 October 3rd

I wanted to have a look at bottle 828A - a lone bottle of Sandeman '54 - or is it '34..? I've plenty of Sa34 but the '54 is rare and the capsule is a bit ambiguous. I wanted to have another look at the capsule to see if I could era date it. Computer said location code 06J18 - but there it was not..

I went into detective mode. Everyone puts bottles in the wrong place from time to time, having some systems in place to help trace errant bottles can be helpful.

Had it been drawn in a busy moment and consumed, with no record kept? Easily done. To guard against this I have two safeguards; first is the neck tag that is always cut off and put in a basket before the bottle is removed from the cellar. Until three years ago these tags had no dedicated home in the cellar. Very occasionally one might get mislaid. I then acquired a bottle that came complete with a pouring basket, which was effectively re-purposed as a tag repository. When did I last inspect this bottle? - last year. The introduction of the basket and lack of social events since it was last inspected made it very likely that it was still in the cellar - just somewhere else.

My second safeguard is that I forbid myself from entering the cellar unless sober. Spur of the moment, rule breaking excursions below stairs are not permitted.

So I checked the written record of the last inspection - no new storage location recorded - but did I forget to note it..?

My next tool was my rack mapping software, which maps the location of every bottle on to a spreadsheet matrices, and throws up alerts if two bottles appear to occupy the same spot. I've not run this tool for some time, and running it threw up two queries.

Errors resolved, I printed out maps of the racks to look for holes that should be empty - but were not.

This revealed my wayward bottle in position 07B04 - moved, but erroneously not recorded.

And is it 54 or 34? I'm still not sure. The wax capsule type I've seen before, but don't still own an example to compare it too. Annoying. I'll leave it booked as '54 until we next have a Sandeman vertical - if it turns out to be twenty years older than expected, I doubt many will grumble..
The discipline required to forbid oneself from entering the cellar unless sober is undoubtedly up there with one of the most commendable things I’ve ever heard. So for what it’s worth, Tom, I commend you.
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

October 15th

Summer is a'going out.. as I opened the door to my holding cellar today, the air coming out felt warm. I don't monitor cellar temperatures religiously; I do have a data logger, but it's apt to run down when I'm not looking, and it takes an odd sized and expensive battery. A thermometer on the wall has been reading very close to 60F since June - the seasonal temperature change in this cellar does not seem to follow a sine curve so much as a summer plateau and winter plateau.

A little unremarkable pottering around of late - a case of Noval '95 has been prised, chalked weighed and returned, and a little search for an AWOL case of three Taylor VVV 2000 was successful. I have four of these, so will open one soon to get some bottles chalked and weighed.

Have been happily drinking through the Rosebery stash, picking off the ones with no discernible ID, and my impression of old Rioja's has improved considerably as a result. There's about a dozen old bottles in the stash with clear ID and in good order that would easily make £50 a go at auction, so I'm well pleased with my bargain.

A little session of recording consumed bottles taking tags from the cellar basket, a glorious Taylor 60, a young Eira Velha '87 with just the faintest hint of VA, and a very uninspiring Delaforce '85. This is not a faulty '85 but it is hard to credit it as being of vintage quality. Also consumed recently was a very nice standard Noval tawny, with around 20-30 years of bottle age, and a very elegant bottle of Borges VVV - bottled in 1947 and probably 30 or so years old at the time.

Next in the decanter, a very old bottle of Graham's six grapes with ancient label and driven cork, probably around a half century old. Since buying the bottle eight years ago I've been vaguely keeping it for an interesting occasion, but as I have many other interesting bottles, think I'll drink it through instead..
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

November 2nd

I keep most of my cellar data on two Excel spreadsheets. One has formatted basic data on every stash and a variety of analytical tools, occupying 5Mb. The second is a wholly unformatted data sheet that carries all my notes and details of every bottle. It is normally hidden and not edited directly, taking instruction from the first sheet and saving data from it, it occupies 2Mb.

Putting all the data on one spreadsheet would result in a heavy and slow file.

I was aware that my backup systems were not perfect, that the two sheets needed to be backed more frequently, and simultaneously. I had started writing code to do this automatically - but had not got it operational yet.

Then I recently discovered an issue with my Excel Vba coding - a corrupting influence had crept in. At first I thought I had accidentally overwritten a single character in the code, then I suspected I had run a Ctrl+H to replace text in a routine and accidentally replaced everything in the project, but the potency of that tool and the potential for calamity is such that I very rarely use it, and only then with huge care. Was it the legendary 'digital decay' - had it simply corrupted itself?

I'm still not 100% sure. What I do know is that I ran a corrupted routine which in turn mucked up a load of data, and worse, I didn't spot the problem for a couple of weeks. The backups being out of sync complicated matters.

What I did have were saved written cellar notes, and a scanning routine I wrote some time ago that tests all the data entries and looks for irregularities.

The scanning routine takes about a minute to work through the 13000 lines of the database. It threw up about 200 errors.. At one point I was tempted to call time on the restoration and accept that I really don't need my TN on a bottle of Cockburn Special Reserve drunk in 2009; but, in for a penny..

I think I've got it mostly sorted - I hope fully sorted now - and the reform of my backup regime now enjoys top billing..
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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JacobH
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by JacobH »

uncle tom wrote: 23:06 Tue 02 Nov 2021 At one point I was tempted to call time on the restoration and accept that I really don't need my TN on a bottle of Cockburn Special Reserve drunk in 2009; but, in for a penny.
I think that was a wise decision. I am still annoyed that I did not regularly date my tasting notes before 2010 and therefore, whilst I have managed to reconstruct some of the dates from big tastings, I cannot quite work out the date of many of the Ports I drank at home between mid-2007 and 2010...
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jdaw1
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by jdaw1 »

From time to time, email somebody both spreadsheets.
MigSU
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by MigSU »

jdaw1 wrote: 01:05 Wed 03 Nov 2021 From time to time, email somebody both spreadsheets.
Ideally himself :P
I do that from time to time with some documents, using two e-mail accounts.
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uncle tom
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

From time to time, email somebody both spreadsheets
Yes having a distant copy stored is a good idea - no-one knows what will happen if we get a repeat of the 1859 solar storm - an awful lot of data could get fried..
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
Steve Veness
Cheap Ruby
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by Steve Veness »

uncle tom wrote: 09:15 Mon 27 Sep 2021
Might we have a photograph of your pine cupboard, please?
If I can remember how..

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=65 ... 5591415821
Ok, I've got to ask, if you don't mind me asking: What's the machine below the cupboard that looks like a lathe without a bed?
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

Ok, I've got to ask, if you don't mind me asking: What's the machine below the cupboard that looks like a lathe without a bed?
It's a 1930's Colchester lathe, slightly stripped down, but I still have all the bits - the bed is still there but is now the base of my work bench.
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
Steve Veness
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by Steve Veness »

uncle tom wrote: 11:35 Wed 03 Nov 2021
Ok, I've got to ask, if you don't mind me asking: What's the machine below the cupboard that looks like a lathe without a bed?
It's a 1930's Colchester lathe, slightly stripped down, but I still have all the bits - the bed is still there but is now the base of my work bench.
Very nice. I have a 1956 Boxford model A which I stripped down and rebuilt.
Glenn E.
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by Glenn E. »

jdaw1 wrote: 01:05 Wed 03 Nov 2021 From time to time, email somebody both spreadsheets.
Or, you know, store it in the cloud and edit it from there. I use both Dropbox and Google Drive for active cloud storage, and also have Microsoft OneDrive and Amazon Drive accounts that back up photos from my phone. All are free except for Google Drive, which I finally decided to upgrade to the minimum 200 Gb plan for $2/month (I think... whatever it is, it's cheap).
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MigSU
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by MigSU »

Yes, I have my spreadsheet online as well (synched to be accessible offline - the reception in my cellar is simply horrendous, both wifi and mobile signal - it's underground and has stone walls).
winesecretary
Fonseca 1980
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by winesecretary »

@MigSu - Poor internet connectivity from one's cellar is indeed a common problem... as you say, they tend to be underground and abundantly walled. Perhaps I will come up with an expensive bespoke solution (#winefi?) as a retirement business.
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uncle tom
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

Out with the old...

My last bottle of port for home drinking in 2021 - the last bottle of T55 from a rough stash bought 11 years ago, is drinking nicely, if a little evolved. I have better stashes in the shadows for the future. Have also just finished a '64 claret from the Rosebery stash. Exact name of the producer not clear, but English bottled and in very good order. Just fifteen bottles left from that stash now.

Have extracted some baskets of wine from cellar 3 to fill gaps in cellar 1 - Gibson shiraz '04, Beaucastel '95, d'Issan '97

New induction and inspection schedules up to speed for the year and logged. First stash of 1998 (Vargellas) sitting in the wings ready to be selected by the 'puter when it gets round to it.

- And my pub manager fell downstairs yesterday - managing to break her wrist (quite badly) ankle and ribs..
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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jdaw1
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by jdaw1 »

uncle tom wrote: 23:45 Fri 31 Dec 2021- And my pub manager fell downstairs yesterday - managing to break her wrist (quite badly) ankle and ribs..
Ouch. We wish her a good recovery.
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uncle tom
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

In with the new..

Whilst manning a very quiet pub today I have done the annual task of cutting neck tags for the year. I make these by guillotining down strung luggage tags, four at time on an old fashioned lever guillotine, 200 in total. These are then stored in a couple of Vesuvio single bottle boxes.

Before going to the pub I printed a load of cellar record sheets for the new year. For no particular reason I wrote a bit of code to give them serial numbers when they print out.

I've run my 'Choose bottle' routine - by far the longest bit of Excel vba code I've ever written, to select my first flight of home drinking VP bottles for '22

And the 'puter's choices are:

1) First bottle: SFE (Tesco) '94
2) Over Stock: Dow '77
3) High ullage: Croft '70 (level: VTS)
4) Not recently drunk: Fonseca '80
5) Drink up: Sandeman '75 (Seepage and poor level, runt of a recently bought litter)
6) Last bottle: Smith Woodhouse '85 (Second of a pair bought in 2005)
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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uncle tom
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

Winter is not a great time to be fussing around in the cellar, but in the heat of summer it is delightfully cool.

Recent tasks have included inspecting a clutch of centenarian bottles and some nearly that old, all previously weighed and inspected at least five years ago. Highest ullage rate was recorded on a Burmester 1922 at 360mg/p.a. lowest on a Taylor '24 at just 19mg/p.a.

The general principle that ullage rates over 200mg demand consumption or waxing within a few years, whilst rates over 400mg demand more urgent attention seems sound.

Then there was an owc to be cracked, a case of W77 I'm sharing with WS. Always a bit of trepidation when opening an owc that old.

The large railway screwdriver I secured on eBay a few years back could have been custom designed for prising owcs. As usual nails and staples are left sticking up after top boards are removed, which can all too easily catch a casual hand so I always lever them out or knock them down before proceeding to unfold the Symington cardboard inners.

And within.. - a dozen tidy bottles, with decent levels and no selo stains - Excellent!
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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jdaw1
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by jdaw1 »

I am pleased that the cellar diary has resumed.

uncle tom wrote: 16:53 Sun 14 Aug 2022 large railway screwdriver
What is a L.R.S.?
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uncle tom
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
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Re: Cellar diary

Post by uncle tom »

What is a L.R.S.?
A super-sized screwdriver, typically 18" long with a blade half an inch wide. There are a few currently on eBay

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-LNER ... 7675.l2557
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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