How do you store you wine?

The other day I was down in Oxford, so decided to stop in at Waddesdon on my way back. Waddesdon happens to be one of my favourite National Trust properties and is well worth a visit if you are in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately I was too late to tour the house but the wine cellar was still open. They have a very impressive cellar with tasting rooms and wine vaults. Just the sort of thing the Rothschild’s would have needed in the Edwardian era to impress their esteemed guests.

However the thing that struck me amongst all this grandeur was their poor storage sequence. They had three wine vaults;

• Vault 1 (and the first you come across): The Centenary Vault

• Vault 2 (second you come across): The Grands Formats Collection

• Vault 3 (the one right at the back): The Working Cellar

From this we can infer that they had put the oldest wines in the first vault. Obviously this had been the only one they originally used. Then in the second vault they had stored all the best wines, to keep them separate. Then they had started to fill up these vaults so the third one had come into play for the everyday wine. All very logical.

However the result is very illogical. The working cellar is now at the back, and the special wines are at the front. So it will always take you longer now to select a bottle of wine. Not to mention there is the temptation to select a better wine because you have to walk right past them first. When you are storing things for a very long time this illogical storage system will inevitably result. Human nature will always push us to do the minimal amount of work so you store things in the closest bin.

When I have visited warehouses, I have noticed a similar thing. The most popular and newest items are stored at the back of the warehouse, because the front was full of the older and out of favour stock. This means that picking times are unnecessarily long. Hence more pickers are needed to keep up with demand.

In my webpage on Inventory Management, I discuss having an annual review of your stock. This is where you not only do a stock take but also assess if the warehouse is still organised in the best order for your current requirements.

So when you open a new warehouse or wine cellar, you should think about filling it up from the back. That way you will always store the most current products at the front.