Build the structure before you enter a single bottle: create your cellars and fridges first, get every bottle in second, add tags third, and place bottles into 3D sections last. Each step depends on the one before it, and doing them out of order is what forces people to start over.
⭐ Requires a paid plan. Custom fields and VinLocate's 3D sections need one, and a free collection gets no VinLocate at all. Storages, bottles and tags work on every plan.
Why this order
Storages → bottles → tags → 3D positions
Three things decide the sequence.
An import creates a cellar for every name it does not recognise. A spreadsheet's cellar-or-fridge-name column is matched letter for letter against the storages you already have. Anything unmatched becomes a new cellar, even if you meant a fridge, and anything blank lands in one called My Cellar. Settle the names first — How to name storages and sections well has the rules.
No import can place bottles into 3D positions. Not spreadsheets, not CellarTracker, not Vivino. Placement is always a job for afterwards, so there is no reason to build sections early.
Moving bottles between storages wipes their 3D positions. Move ten or more at once on iPhone or iPad and the app makes you type
CONFIRM, because the slots go with them. Place bottles last and you place them once.
Undoing a storage is the expensive move: How to delete a cellar or fridge.
Getting the bottles in
While your collection is empty, Home carries a Get started card with the routes on it.
Your situation | Use this | Why |
Already tracked somewhere else | Import from CellarTracker, Import from Vivino or Upload a spreadsheet | Brings whatever the other app exports — prices, notes, history. Never tags. |
A large cellar, no existing list | Upload a spreadsheet | One pass along the racks beats bottle by bottle. |
A few wines at a time | Label scanning, or Search | Search queues several wines and fills shared details in once. |
An import always adds — it never merges, so a file that repeats bottles you already entered leaves you with two of each. A spreadsheet is the only source a person reviews: our team reads it, and rows we could not match come back by email as a spreadsheet. CellarTracker and Vivino match automatically. How to import your collection walks through all three.
Tag once the bottles are in. Nothing imports tags for you, so it is bulk work — and How to organise with tags and custom fields covers that, plus the custom-field choice you cannot undo.
Finding bottles without VinLocate
You do not need 3D to find a bottle. Put your own coordinates in Bottle location text in the add form's Storage info section, then filter on that field alongside Cellars and Tags. What you type stays useful if you add VinLocate later.
Next steps
How to create a cellar or fridge — step one, screen by screen
How to add bottles to your collection — step two
Understanding VinLocate — the last step