Cellaring wine! Where to start...

I had a friend ask me the other day what he needed to do, if he wanted to start collecting wine.  I said, mmhhh that is a question with many answers, some of them similar, but some may vary on what you are looking to collect, what you are collecting for et cetera.

So, let’s assume that you just got tired of running to the wine store each time you had friends/guests coming over for dinner.  In that case, a regular wine rack, holding about 20 bottles or so, will do.  Whatever you do, PLEASE do not use

 that “nice” built in wine rack in the kitchen!  There is no worse place to store wine then in the kitchen, where it usually the hottest place in the house, the temperature is never same and so on!  If you have a basement!  BRAVO!  You are off to a great start.  Even if not, try to keep your wines under stable, cool temperatures with as little light as possible.  You can keep your white and red wine in the same wine rack, simply place your white wine about 1 hour before the guests arrive in the freezer (just don’t forget to take it back out) or by one of those fast chillers.  Either do the trick.   What should I have on hand?  Oh well, in such, more personal selection, I would stick with wines you like.

Everyday wine and more.  Basement or cool place, dark place is defiantly a plus at this stage.  A wine fridge, if you don’t have a basement, would be your best alternative. Whites and reds still can be in the same fridge, but be mindful that your whites will still need the additional chill.  Beyond having the wines you like and enjoy every day, start adding special occasion wines.  Those should be wines, that you might had before, but can’t afford for everyday drinking.  The everyday and more is a huge range, and you will find yourself soon buying more of the “futures to be” in addition to your everyday drinking wines.  What to do when I have 200-300 wines on hand beyond everyday stuff?  

Anybody with that problem, most likely already got there answers, but all curious others, come back tomorrow for part 2 of the cellaring and collecting of wine.

You know that you are an addicted wine collector when you find yourself always one bottle short of something J