If your sheet tells you what you own and where it is, keep it. SmartCellar becomes useful when bottle counts drift, rack names turn cryptic and the notes you need are somewhere else.
This is not about swapping a familiar list for software merely because it exists. It is about having a cellar record you can use while standing at the rack, choosing wine for dinner or remembering what you opened last time.
The free plan gives you enough room to try SmartCellar with a shelf or case. No card required.
For a small, settled collection, a simple sheet can be exactly right. You know the rows, the bottles stay put and the file answers the questions you actually ask. There is no prize for making that more complicated.
A bottle is opened but the count is not changed. A case is split between two places. A rack is moved and only half the rows are updated. None of this is dramatic; it is simply how a trusted list slowly becomes one you check against the bottles.
SmartCellar gives each wine a place for its quantity, exact location, drinking window, label photograph, purchase details and your own notes. The record still needs looking after, of course, but changing a count or location is quick enough to do while the bottle is in your hand.
There is no need to move the whole cellar. Put a familiar part of it into SmartCellar and see how the record feels in ordinary use.
Choose bottles you know well, so you can tell at a glance whether the count, names and locations feel right.
Search the shelf by region, readiness or style and see whether it helps you choose without rummaging.
Change the quantity and leave a quick note while the bottle is still in your hand.
If SmartCellar proves useful, add another rack or case when you have time. The old sheet can stay safely where it is.
Not at all. If it is easy to update and you trust what it says, keep using it. SmartCellar is for the point where the sheet starts taking more care than the cellar.
Try it when bottle counts or locations often need correcting, tasting notes are scattered around, or choosing what to open means searching through several tabs and files.
Not automatically at present. Keep the original as a reference and begin with a shelf or case you know well. There is no need to rebuild the whole cellar in one sitting.