Storing Wine

Four main things to think about here:

Temperature

The key thing is to to have as even temperature as possible - no huge swings. So a kitchen is not a great place to store wine. If you have wine you want to lay down to age then cool is better than warm, since this will encourage proper ageing in a gentle way. Below 5C is not good as this will slow things to a standstill, and above 20C will accelerate things too much.

Light

Light has an adverse effect on wine in storage, hence the reason for a lot of bottles being in dark glass. Red and sparkling wines are worst affected, but it's always best to keep light to a minimum. Wine's a living organism, and everything sleeps better in the dark... Plus too much light may have an effect on temperature.

Humidity

Too dry and over a period of time you may get excess "ullage" - the space between cork and wine in the bottle. So a little humidity is good. Too much may cause mould, but this is the lesser evil. Good ventilation will help preserve a balance.

Angle

All light wine benefits from being stored horizontally. This ensures continued contact with the cork, keeping it moist, and inhibiting penetration of oxygen. With screwcaps this obviously not such an issue, but it's always handy to have a wine lying label up both for identification, and to allow any sediment to settle on the clear side. Keeping the label in good nick also helps if you intend to sell the wine later.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a cellar, but places like understairs cupboards, spare rooms, garages (though insulated is best), unused fireplaces, pantries, or basements can all work well. You can of course invest in a temperature controlled cabinet (there are various sizes from about 16 bottles to 1,000), and for rather more money you can have a specially designed spiral cellar dug in almost any part of your house to store anything from 600 - 1500 bottles.