Anybody got some crackers & cheese?

...to go along with our wine(s)?

First room needed to be made.

2013 is going to be a big year of change around here!  "Space Justification" and overall organization were just the (very small time) beginnings last year.  This year we are going to, as Emeril would say, "kick things up a notch - BAM!"

Many of the projects I have started are not "visual" - nobody says "Wow!  You've really done a great job organizing/simplifying your tax returns, Terri.  I really wish I could do that!"  Sometimes, if for no other reason than it keeps motivation high, it's important to do some obvious, visual and BIG!

January's project definitely qualifies.  After years of talking around the project, vaguely looking at different ways of doing it, and generally tripping over cases (many, many, oh my goodness so MANY cases) of wine, it was finally time to just do something - ANYTHING!

When it was on sale last month (and realizing that something this big could not possibly arrive until after the holidays - YAY!) we ordered the Vinotemp 440-Bottle Wine Cellar from Costco.  It's probably not as lovely as what Gerry had originally in mind but it is actually designed to be located in a garage (where functionality is all that really matters).  It holds a LOT of wine...oddly not 440 because it only has 18x12x2 places for bottles and since there is an "8" (see previous posting) in the equation I borke out the calculator to determine that at most (dependent on bottle size) maximum capacity is actually 432.  This means 8 (oh if only it were so) bottles would have to go elsewhere.  Still...432 is a lot of capacity.

39 CASES OF WEILER WINE!

It arrived right during the Seahawk game on Sunday (not a problem for Gerry since he is only allowed to watch them play on tape delay - it's just easier for all of us that way!).  We spent the morning relocating the wine cases from their various "storage" places (in the garage, somewhere in the house, at the off-site storage facility) so Gerry was ready to plug 'er in and get it filled.  Then the delivery guy said no...you can't even plug it in for the first 24 hours (gotta let that freon settle).  Okay - bummed but knowing he could get it done Monday night after work he came in and watched what had by that time become the Seahawk victory.

The Wonderful World of Color

Now loading a cellar is not as easy as just plunking bottles in - unless you want to have to go through the entire cellar just to find that last bottle of Ketcham Estates Pinot Noir you've been saving.  It takes a bit of organization - and a complete inventory of your wines.  We found a software that would help with that process and finally on Wednesday night (after numerous tries involving several charts, colored markers and more than a little frustration), we had a "map" for the cellar and the loading process began.

It's still got some "tweaking" left to do - and I'd like to put some "toe tags" on at least the front bottles to make it faster to locate, but it's already a huge improvement over what we had before.  From the picture, there appears to be a small area (~12 slots or 24 bottles) that doesn't have anything in it yet.  It's for our "orphan" wines - those singleton bottles that don't have a particular varietal designation. 

Doesn't it just look happier full?

There are a couple of other details to completely finish off this project:  1) I'd like to put some "toe tags" on at least the front bottles to speed up location of a specific wine; 2) you can see in the photo there is a small area (~12 slots = 24 bottles) that doesn't have anything in it yet for our "orphan" wines - those singleton bottles that don't have a particular variety designation or ones I couldn't remember what category I had assigned them when entering them into the computer (it was nearly midnight for crying out loud); and perhaps the biggest remaining challenge 3) what to do with the ~160 bottles that flat out won't fit in the cellar (which goes to highlight the need for the cellar so we could actually see in one place how much we have accumulated!)

It won't be terribly hard to decide what to do with some of those 160 bottles.  I mean how good do we really think a 1989 Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc could be?  Seriously - what is the shelf life of that wine?  Especially considering that we purchased the wine...probably in 1989...for $1/bottle - just how could good it have been then?  (On the other hand, we've got half a case left of some port we purchased around then and seriously that stuff is getting really GOOD!)

What do you suppose the recycling guy thought of this?

So obviously it's still a project in progress and we will have some time in the next few weeks to go through these "spare" wines and dump the bad (hopefully BEFORE we try to serve it to any friends!)  As you can see, we are doing our part to keep people employed, especially in the recycling industry.  This stack of packing inserts for the cases doesn't even include the styrofoam ones and is already taller than me!  I anticipate so much more, in terms of bottles, going into the bin over the next few months.

And we will have the time to do this since we will be without a kitchen for ~6-7 weeks as we move to the next phase of improvement: the kitchen remodel.

~Cheers, tw