Getting Started
How to Import Your Wine List: CSV, CellarTracker, or Scan
By Carson Smith, founder of Cellared. Last updated June 25, 2026.
Short answer: the fastest way to move an existing collection in is a CellarTracker CSV export, which imports in under three minutes. A loose spreadsheet or a PDF does not import as a file, so for those the quickest route is label scanning, about ten seconds a bottle. Pick the path that matches what you are starting from.
Key Takeaways
- Takeaway 1
- The fastest way to move an existing collection in is a CellarTracker CSV export, which imports in under three minutes for a few hundred bottles.
- Takeaway 2
- Cellared's file import is built around the CellarTracker export format. A loose spreadsheet or a PDF does not import as a file today.
- Takeaway 3
- For any list that is not a CellarTracker export, the fast path is label scanning: photograph the bottle and the producer, wine, vintage, varietal, and region fill in automatically.
- Takeaway 4
- A CellarTracker import preserves producer, wine, vintage, varietal, bottle size, bin location, purchase date and price, region, your tasting notes, and quantity verbatim. Only the drinking windows are recalculated, by the Cellared Ageability Index.
- Takeaway 5
- You can run the import more than once and it deduplicates, so a partial list and a partner's bottles merge cleanly instead of doubling up.
The fastest path for each source
What works depends entirely on where your list lives now. This table is the whole decision in one place.
| You are starting from | Direct file import? | Fast path | Rough time |
|---|---|---|---|
| A CellarTracker account | Yes, CSV export | Export to CSV from CellarTracker, then Settings, Import, CellarTracker in the app. | Under 3 minutes for 200 bottles |
| A spreadsheet (Excel or Google Sheets) | Not as a file | There is no generic spreadsheet importer. Scan the physical bottles, or enter them, instead of wrestling the columns into shape. | Varies |
| A PDF or printed list | No | A PDF cannot be read as an import file. Photograph each bottle with the label scanner, or retype the shortlist. | Roughly 10 seconds per bottle to scan |
| Photos of labels, no list | No file import | Use the label scanner one bottle at a time. | Roughly 10 seconds per bottle |
| Physical bottles, no list at all | Not applicable | Label scanning is faster than typing: point the camera, confirm the match. | Roughly 10 seconds per bottle |
If you are on CellarTracker: export to CSV
This is the only path that moves a full collection in as a file, and it is fast. In CellarTracker, open My Cellar, choose Tools, then Export, and select the CSV format. In Cellared, go to Settings, Import, CellarTracker, pick the file, and confirm the column mapping before you commit. Cellared looks up each row against its wine database, attaches a drinking window, and flags any bottle it cannot match cleanly so nothing is silently dropped.
The step-by-step, including what happens to unmatched bottles, lives on the CellarTracker import page. If you are weighing the move, the Cellared vs CellarTracker comparison covers what changes after you switch.
If your list is a spreadsheet, PDF, or photo
None of these import as a file, and it is worth saying plainly rather than promising a feature that does not exist. A personal spreadsheet has no guaranteed column structure, a PDF is a picture of text, and a photo is just an image. Reformatting any of them by hand into a clean import is usually slower than the alternative.
The faster route is to scan the bottles themselves. The label scanner reads producer, wine, vintage, varietal, and region in a few seconds per bottle, and it attaches a fresh drinking window as it goes, which a column of text never could. At roughly ten seconds a bottle you can scan a two-hundred-bottle cellar in about half an hour, spread across a few sittings.
Cataloging from scratch, fast
If you have never kept a list, do not start by building a spreadsheet you will then have to migrate. Scan straight into the cellar. Each scan fills the bottle details and a drinking window in one step, so by the time you have worked through a rack you have a real, queryable cellar rather than a text file to import later.
For how the drinking windows are produced, see the Cellared Ageability Index methodology, and for choosing among the cellar apps generally, the best wine cellar apps guide lays out which tool fits which collector.
Your CellarTracker export imports in under three minutes
Or scan your bottles straight in. Every bottle lands with a drinking window from minute one. Free to start, no card.
Download Cellared - FreeFrequently Asked
Can I import a wine list from a PDF?+
Not as a file. A PDF, whether it is a restaurant-style list or a printout of a spreadsheet, cannot be read directly into a cellar app. The fast path is to photograph each bottle with the app's label scanner, which fills in producer, wine, vintage, varietal, and region automatically. For a short list, retyping is sometimes quicker than scanning. There is no reliable way to turn a PDF into a clean structured import without one of those two steps.
Does Cellared import a generic CSV or only a CellarTracker export?+
Cellared's file import is built around the CellarTracker export format. A CellarTracker CSV maps cleanly because the columns are known. A loose CSV exported from a personal spreadsheet does not have a guaranteed structure, so it is not supported as a direct import today. If your collection lives in a spreadsheet, the practical path is to scan the bottles or enter them, rather than reformatting columns by hand.
Can I import my collection from Vivino?+
Vivino does not offer a clean export of your cellar as a structured CSV, so there is no file to import. The realistic path from Vivino is to scan the labels of the bottles you actually own with the label scanner, which is fast and also attaches a fresh drinking window to each bottle. Your Vivino account stays untouched.
What carries over when I import from CellarTracker?+
Producer, wine name, vintage, and varietal; bottle size, bin location, purchase date, and purchase price; your tasting notes, preserved verbatim; quantity on hand including consumed bottles; and region, appellation, and country. The one thing that is not carried over is the drinking window, which Cellared recalculates from the Cellared Ageability Index rather than importing a number from another source.
How long does it take to catalog 200 bottles?+
From a CellarTracker export, the whole import runs in under three minutes, and most of that is the export step on CellarTracker's side. Scanning from scratch is slower but still practical: at roughly ten seconds per bottle, a 200-bottle cellar is about half an hour of scanning, which you can do in batches over a week rather than all at once.
Do my drinking windows come over from my old app?+
No, and that is deliberate. Drinking windows differ by methodology, so importing a number from another tool would mix two systems. Cellared recalculates a window for every imported bottle using the Cellared Ageability Index, a documented ten-factor model, so every bottle in your cellar is scored the same way.
See the drinking window on your own bottles
Cellared calculates a per-bottle drinking window from the Cellared Ageability Index, a documented 10-factor model, and alerts you when a wine reaches its peak.