Whether you have one or one thousand bottles of wine, how you store your wine will affect the quality of your wine tremendously. This is especially true if you are trying to age wine. It's not too hard to store wine, and there's much less complexity to it than you think. If you take the proper steps early, you will have great tasting and properly aged wine that you can enjoy years from now!
On average, white wines and dessert/sweet wines are much more susceptible to degrading over time due to poor storage conditions. For example, Cabernet Sauvignons are much sturdier than Pinot Noir wines. Above all, Champagne is very susceptible to degradation. Regardless of the type of wine you collect, any wine will degrade over time if not kept in ideal conditions. It's much more common to age red wines than white.
Temperature is the most crucial environmental control that can either age wine properly or destroy it. Ideally, all wines should be stored in temperature between 40 – 55 degrees Fahrenheit. It's OK if the temperature is cooler than this (though not freezing), and it should never be more than 65 degrees. Another principal of temperature and wine storage is consistency. Even a single day or two above 65 degrees can degrade an otherwise wonderful wine and age it prematurely. This is especially important if you have very expensive wines.
The next biggest enemies of wine are light and too little humidity. Since most cellars are in basements or underground, light usually is not a problem when storing wine. Just keep in mind that sunlight and any sort of ultraviolet light causes wine to degrade. In America, we tend to use air conditioners which effectively dry out our homes to 10-20% average humidity. A good wine cellar or storage place needs at least 55% humidity. Less than this will cause water to escape through the dried out cork, and let air into the wine. Ideally, you should keep your wine in 75% or more humidity. In fact, in Europe, some wine cellars actually have mold growing on the outside of the wine bottles they keep because humidity is so high! There's nothing wrong with this and it is actually a point of pride for many European wine collectors.
Usually, the novice wine collector will store wine upright without knowing any better. This can be lethal to wine. Always store wine (except Champagne) on its side so that the wine within has contact with the cork. Without having this contact, the cork can dry out and let air inside as the wine oxidizes. This will quickly spoil any wine, regardless of cost and other storage conditions. Also, try to minimize movement of your wine. While occasional vibrations and movements won't degrade wine, constant vibrations and handling will. This becomes an issue when the collector is trying to transport wine and chooses to transport by railway or car. If you have recently transported a wine this way, allow it time to settle down before enjoying it.
A very old bottle of wine is a wonderful reward for years of hard work and climate control. There's nothing more satisfying on a special occasion than opening the bottle you've been saving for twenty years, and enjoying the fruits of your labor.
