IntelliScanner Wine Collector 300

For the oenophile with a large wine collection, IntelliScanner’s Wine Collector 250 is just the ticket. It’s a little hand-held scanner that scans the barcode on your bottles. Then download the information onto your computer to create a searchable database. It even helps you locate the wine in your cellar, which can be a daunting task if you have several hundred bottles. The software also links to various wine sites, where you can obtain more information about your bottle or the winery.

It’s a great organization tool, though it does have its limitations. The barcode will give you winery, type, varietal, country and sometimes region, but you’ll most likely need to plug in the vintage and designated vineyard. So take a pad and pen (or your laptop) with you when you start cataloging your cellar. Despite this small inconvenience, IntelliScanner is a great time saver. It also allows you to export information from or to an Excel spreadsheet.

Various configurations of IntelliScanner products range from $149 to $299. Once you have the Wine Collector (about $200), you can expand its capabilities by adding additional software (for about $50) with which you can catalog all of those other items in your life, such as comics, DVDs, CDs, books, home assets, groceries, etc.