So you’ve acquired a taste for good wines, and you’ve decided you can afford to set aside a few dollars a month to build up a little cellar for yourself. What should you buy? How much should you spend? How should you store it?

The answer to the first question is obvious: buy what you like to drink. But drink when – now, in the near future, or for the long term? Some of the wines I buy are meant for immediate consumption. I don’t expect them to improve too much with age, so I buy them young and fresh (like Rieslings and Beaujolais) and, if they are discretely enough priced, in quantity. Some others of which I also try to purchase several bottles are those which I feel are drinking fine now but which I expect to improve over the next one to two years (such as uncomplicated Chardonnays, Sauvignon Blancs and Merlots). Then there are the “big guns,” usually big chewy reds (like Reserve Pinot Noirs, Cabernets, Northern Italians, French Burgundies), which I buy one—maybe two ($?)—at a time and which I don’t expect to touch for 3-10 years. (Having recently passed the half-century mark, I don’t look too much farther ahead than that.) Since my tastes are pretty eclectic (the only wines I don’t like are bad wines), I try to buy a fairly wide range of varieties from most of the grape-growing areas of the world. Although I don’t have a very large personal wine cellar, in terms of numbers of bottles, there is no shortage of options each time I go looking for a bottle.

How much should you spend? Now, there’s a good question! The obvious answer—another question: how much have you got? Clearly, this is a very subjective issue and depends on personal circumstances and preferences. I have always maintained that everyone has something on which they will spend what others will consider “too much” money—cars, computers, clothes, artwork, golf, travel, etc. In my case, it is wine. Although quality does not automatically equate to price, it is usually true that the better wines command higher prices. The trick, of course, is to discover the real values (and then buy a lot of them). But I generally recommend spending at the upper end of your comfort level, regardless of whether you are buying wines for immediate enjoyment or to put away for awhile.

Finally, how to store the wines in your growing cellar? In a February 1998 article in Wine Spectator entitled “The ABC’s of Wine Storage,” Kim Marcus describes the ideal storage conditions for wine in a most lyrical fashion: “Think of a cool night after a gentle autumn rain. All you need is a good sweater to keep yourself warm. The air is calm and humid, but not dank. Moonlight is diffused by a blanket of clouds, which helps keep the temperature from dropping too much more.” Put into numbers, this translates into a relatively constant temperature of 50-60 degrees (55 is often cited as the “gold standard”), with a relative humidity no higher than 80%. In the Northwest, this can easily be achieved in a basement room or even a north-facing closet and should allow even the best wines to age gracefully and steadily to display their highest potential.

I like to serve all my white wines directly from the cellar (although I will chill my Champagnes and dessert wines in the refrigerator for a half-hour just before serving). I also find that pulling my red wines from my 55-degree cellar about an hour ahead of serving allows them to lose their chill while still tasting fresh and lively.

This month’s picks: Having just completed our final winemakers’ dinner of this winter-spring series, I still have the lovely flavors and textures and Don and Wendy Lange’s excellent Dundee winery on my mental palate. From Lange Winery, we enjoyed a rich, luscious and almost-oily (in a good way) Reserve Pinot Gris 1999 and three remarkable Pinot Noirs: a simple but varietally correct and very tasty Willamette Valley 1999, a surprising 1997 Three Hills Cuvee Pinot Noir (a big and delicious wine from a much-maligned vintage), and a “big gun” Reserve Pinot Noir 1998, which should be around—and get much better—for the next 3-5 years.