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InVintory Help

How to organise with tags and custom fields

Reach for a tag when the answer is yes or no, and a custom field when the answer is a number, a date or text you want to search. The one decision worth making before you create anything is whether a custom field belongs to the wine or to the bottle, because a field cannot move between the two afterwards.

Which one to reach for

Section titled “Which one to reach for”
The question you want to ask Use
Which of these are gifts? Which are for the restaurant? A tag — a bottle either carries it or it does not, which is exactly what a tag is
Which score above 93? Which should I drink before June? A number or date custom field — both filter as a range, with Min and Max
Which of these mention the auction house? A text custom field — text filters on Contains

Both end up in the same place. Tap Filter on your collection page and tags have their own Tags section, while your custom fields add two more, Custom label fields and Custom bottle fields. Either can also be one of the four details you print on a barcode label.

Label or bottle: decide first

Section titled “Label or bottle: decide first”

Custom fields come in two kinds, created in different places, and there is no way to convert one into the other. Pick by asking whether the value would be the same on every bottle of that wine and vintage.

Label custom field Bottle custom field
Holds One value shared by every bottle of that wine and vintage A value on one individual bottle
Suits A critic you follow, a drink-by date, your own verdict on the wine Which case it arrived in, who gave it to you, a fill level
Survives editing the vintage — it stays behind with the old year ✅ it follows the bottle

Two things that catch people out

Section titled “Two things that catch people out”
  • Do not give a label field and a bottle field the same name. In a CSV export the two collapse into a single column and the bottle value wins, so a name clash quietly hides half your data.
  • Nothing imports your tags. No spreadsheet, CellarTracker or Vivino import brings tags across, so tagging is a job for afterwards — and bulk edit is the way to do it. On iPhone and iPad, tap the selection circle on each wine, then ⋯ → Tags.
Collection → select bottles → ⋯ → Tags

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”