Know what to open. Know what to sell.
Encave reads your cellar and tells you what is ready, what is going over, and why — showing the evidence, not a score. Then it gives you somewhere to sell the ones you are never going to drink, to people whose cellars are looking for them.
Unlimited bottles, free, no card. Listing a lot is free too — the buyer pays the fee, not you. See the fees.
- 205,421
- wines in the catalogue
- 2,842
- vintages with drinking windows
- 78
- regions mapped
- 44
- lots open for bidding
Live now
Closing soonest
How it works
A bottle, from the shelf to the saleroom.
01
Scan
Photograph the label
A phone photo, a CellarTracker export, a spreadsheet, or typed in. The bottle is matched against 205,420 wines.
Château Palmer 2003
Margaux · Bordeaux · 750ml
Matched on producer and vintage
02
Insight
See the window, and its source
Every window says where it came from and how much sits behind it. An estimate from the wine's style says so, and asks you to correct it.
Drinking window
- Source
- Community median
- Evidence
- 14 notes
- Your pace
- 2 bottles behind
03
Decide
Drink it, or sell it
Bottles going over, or that you own more of than you will drink, are put forward as candidates. You decide — nothing is listed for you.
Candidate to sell
Château Palmer 2003
Past its window and more than you will drink. Worth more to someone else than it is to you.
04
Auction
Let the room decide the price
A seven-day lot, a reserve only you can see, and a close that extends on a late bid so winning means outbidding someone.
Current bid
£455.00
- Bidder 3£455.00
- Bidder 1£440.00
- Bidder 3£415.00
Bidders are numbered per lot, so the same number means the same person here and nowhere else. A bid in the last two minutes pushes the close out by two more.
A worked example. Figures are the kind Encave produces, not a particular sale.
Five bottles. Each with its reasoning.
Most cellar software can tell you that two hundred bottles are past their window. That is technically true and practically useless — and collectors rightly do not believe it, because published windows run early and nothing shows where they came from.
So every suggestion here names its source and how much evidence sits behind it. When a window is only our estimate from the wine's style, it says so and asks you to correct it rather than telling you what to do.
Example
Château Palmer 2003
Margaux · 4 btl · Bottle (750ml) · Kitchen rack
2012–2023
Community median · 14 notes
- 3 years past its window, which ended 2023 — Community median of 14 notes
- About 2 bottles behind your own drinking pace — Paced across its 2012–2023 window
Why nothing else does this
Vivino tells you what to buy
It earns from your next purchase, so it will never tell you that you already own too much.
CellarTracker remembers what you own
It has the data and stays deliberately neutral — it hands you a list and leaves you there.
Encave earns from the collector, so being decisive is the whole point.
The saleroom
And somewhere to sell the ones you will never drink.
Every cellar has them: the case you bought three of and liked one of, the vintage that is going over faster than you can drink it. Encave is the only place where the thing that tells you to sell a bottle is also the place you sell it.
Your cellar nominates the lots
Bottles past their window, or that you own more of than you will drink, are put forward as candidates. You decide; nothing is listed for you.
No last-second sniping
A bid in the final two minutes pushes the close out by two more, up to ten times. Winning means outbidding someone, not out-refreshing them.
Your reserve stays yours
Set a price below which you will not sell. Bidders never see it — they see only whether it has been met, and the lot simply does not sell if it is not.
Bring your cellar across
Import a CellarTracker export or a spreadsheet, see what Encave says about what you already own — and find out which of it is worth more to somebody else than it is to you.