Congratulations CellarTracker!

CellarTracker just reached 1,000,000 user posted tasting notes. What Eric Levine began 5 years ago as a way to track his own wine collection has grown to be among the most influential and in my opinion the most useful wine website out there. I, along with 82,000 other registered users, manage our own wine collections, record our thoughts on the wines we’re drinking, and research other wines using this website. A good measure of CellarTracker’s range is, according to a press release from CellarTracker, leading wine magazines Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate each publish about 1000 reviews per month. CellarTracker users post on average 1100 tasting notes a day.
I think this milestone represents more than just the success of one website. It, and certainly some other sites (even Facebook), are giving wine lovers the tools to learn more about their passion and decentralizing the information available. The influence of any one critic has been reduced. While some may argue that “amateur” tasting notes and reviews are not of much value, I think that when you get enough of them, you really start to get a feeling for what a wine is like. This, in my opinion, is the greatest value of CellarTracker. 30 positive reviews on CellarTracker are far more influential to me than one guy’s experience on one particular day, even if that guy was dubbed the emperor of wine.
I may be just preaching to the choir as I know that many folks who will read this already use CellarTracker, but those who aren’t, give it a try. It is based on the shareware model. It is free to register and use but there are suggested donations based on the size of cellar you are tracking. Donations also turn on some additional value added features like links to professional reviews and wine auction values. Note: I don’t have any commercial or other interest in CellarTracker. I’m just a very enthusiastic user.
I’d love to hear about your favorite feature or discovery on CellarTracker. Feel free to also post the negatives and suggestions too. Anything constructive, I’ll pass on to Eric Levine.

Search CellarTracker for notes on Match Vineyards’ wines.