Storing or cellaring wine is something that people are often unsure of the best way to do it or which wines will benefit from it.

First select your wine. Acids, sugar, alcohol and anthocyanins help to preserve wine. In the case of red wines look for: good intense colour, ripe rich fruit, alcohol, discernible acid and discernible tannins (but not the mouth puckering, throat tearing type!). In white wines look for clarity and "brightness", alcohol, discernible acid and ripe fruit. Some white varieties are more suited to aging than others e.g. Chardonnay and Riesling develop well in the bottle.

The wine you choose should have a good balance of fruit, acid, alcohol and tannins. No one element should obliterate another - a wine that lacks balance and charm when young will not acquire it with age and unbalanced wines tend to get worse.

Next decide whether it is short term - up to two years - or long term that you want to store the wine for. If you are storing for up to two years provided that the wines are kept in a cool (less than 20°C) part of the house that has a fairly constant temperature they should keep all right. The warmer the constant temperature is the quicker the wine will age but it is the fluctuations in hot and cold that stress the cork because of the build up and lowering of internal pressure in the bottle. A cork can only take so much and when it is overworked it loses its elasticity and eventually leaks - letting air (wine's enemy) in and turning the wine to vinegar. The cork needs to be wet to work properly too and that is why storing bottles on their side or upside down also helps the wine to keep longer.

The best way to check on temperature fluctuations is with a maximum-minimum thermometer (perhaps this is a good gift suggestion) as fluctuations of more than 5°C will put corks under stress.

To keep wines for longer periods then the cellar or storeroom needs to be kept about 12° - 15°C and once again temperature fluctuations should be monitored.

Different wines can be cellared for varying lengths of time - no hard and fast rules apply - temperature of cellar, different light contact, vibrations, not to mention the individuality of the wine - it is not an exact science!

Remember too, that wines don't peak overnight. They tend to find their height and hold it for sometime (plateau) before gradually fading. Peter Saunders suggests that "Hawkes Bay Chardonnay can be usable one year after vintage (March), good drinking at two and at its best at three to six. Some may be built for longer."

I guess if you can buy in sufficient quantity and have confidence in your cellar temperatures then experiment and that will satisfy your curiosity of a particular wine's development.