In advance:

• Keep wine that you enjoy;
• Average wines do not improve with age;
• Do not consider storing wine as an investment but as a daily pleasure;
• As it is a natural product wine ages if it is exposed to oxygen. Once a bottle is opened it has a limited shelf-life (about 1 day or a little longer in the fridge).

Storage:
To store good wine (also called laying down wine) a dark place as well as a constant temperature is needed which is not too humid and not too dry. All wine can be stored around 12°C with a humidity level of between 60 and 75%.

Serving temperature:
To enjoy your wine at its best the serving temperature is very important (tip: serve the wine a little cooler as the wine will warm up slightly once it has been poured!). Of course the temperature also involves personal preferences so the following list is more of a guideline.

White wine should be refreshing and therefore should normally be served chilled. But chilling can also mask the taste and the bouquet. So the finer the wine the less it should be chilled.
It is often advised to serve Red wine at ‘room temperature’ but this originates from the time when the average room temperature was 5°C lower than our modern-day room temperatures (so one generally serves red wine at 17°C). Actually one should examine the quantity of tannin in a wine to establish the correct serving temperature. The higher the level of tannin the higher the serving temperature should be. But be careful, if the wine is served at too high a temperature then it can lose its optimal taste (as more alcohol is released in the bouquet and taste).