We often get questions about how to start a cellar or, more importantly, what to put in it. Building a wine cellar from scratch seems like such a daunting process, but that proverbial first step that applies to climbing mountains applies to wine cellars too. It all begins with the first bottle.

Do you think we started with a few hundred bottles? When we each started our cellars in the 1980s, we would buy a bottle to drink and two bottles to put in the cellar. Eventually, we were able to afford a case. Of course, wine was the preferred gift during the holidays and all those wines brought by dinner guests managed to accumulate nicely. Slowly, our cellars grew to about 500 bottles — a modest size compared to many cellars of the rich and famous.

Then again, you could follow the course of Jennifer Higgins, winemaker at Lancaster Estate in Sonoma County. She grew up in a family that enjoyed wine and her father challenged her to describe wine when she was only 9. She learned how to appreciate a wine. Once she started to babysit at age 13, she asked for a bottle of zinfandel as payment for her services. Her father, of course, kept the wine locked up until she turned  21 and by then she had amassed a very nice collection that still serves her today. Some of those zinfandels just aren’t made as well today as they were then.

Tom has a temperature-controlled cellar while Pat is able to keep a stable, natural  environment in his basement. So, it doesn’t take a lot of technical experience to create a cellar. If you have a cool, below-ground corner of your house, you can block it off and keep a reasonable temperature. Fifty-five degrees is optimal, but you won’t get that in a basement. It is more important, though, that the temperature doesn’t fluctuate dramatically — heat spikes can prematurely age a wine and even force out the cork.

We were once summoned to a friend’s temperature-controlled cellar that housed  $10,000 worth of wine. He was in Hawaii and the maid called to report the bottles were leaking. It turned out his thermostat malfunctioned and instead of cooling the cellar, it heated it. Once the temperature hit 85 degrees or so, the corks began to emerge through the foil and expensive wine seeped onto the floor. It was a mess — but much worse was the damage done to the wine. Even in this condition, wine is resilient enough to retain some quality. We didn’t detect any deterioration in most of the wines, although they weren’t going to last as long as he wanted. We pushed the corks back into the bottle one by one and the collector (with our help) drank up his wines or gave them away.

If you do plan to install a cooling unit, you need to include a vapor barrier in the walls and floors to keep it insulated. Cooling units also have to be ventilated into an area with room temperature -- you can’t take the noisy units to the outdoors. It is wise to check with the manufacturer’s recommendations before buying or even building a wine cellar. Merchants can help.

A cellar also should be dark (no sunlight beaming in) and free of vibration and odors. In other words, don’t build it next to the furnace or garbage can.

Bottles should be stored horizontally because this keeps the cork moist. A dry cork will be hard to remove in one piece, but it also allows for oxygen to enter the bottle. Air is an enemy to wine, so the cork needs to swell from moisture. You can make your own bins out of lumber or you can buy relatively cheap kits from web sites like Wine Enthusiast.

As far as what to buy, your choices should follow your tastes. It is absolute lunacy to buy trophy wines to impress friends unless you understand what you are drinking and truly appreciate them. We have seen lots of trophy cellars amassed by amateurs who haven’t a clue about what they bought or even when to serve them. Buy wines you like whether they are expensive or cheap.

Generally, red wines age better than white. A compound called “tannin” allows wine to age. They are the mouth-puckering flavors that you find in young red wines. Wines shed their tannins as they age. Tannins come from grape skins and stems crushed with the grapes.

Serious collectors generally turn to France for their cellars because the producers have a long, proven track record in making wines for the cellar. Unfortunately, Bordeaux and Burgundy  — the most well-known and prestigious areas for collectors — are so expense that only the very rich can afford to buy cases every vintage. We tend to favor the full-bodied red wines from the Rhone Valley of France. They are more reasonably priced and age gracefully.

There isn’t anything wrong with California either, although the cult cabernet sauvignons are more than $200 a bottle — outrageous and unaffordable to the common man. Don’t let the prices discourage you — a lot of cabs are affordable and can be aged for short terms.

Having a wine cellar is a great experience. We love to open a wine that has been in our cellar for 10 years or more and note how it has improved. Usually there is a memory of how it tasted when first released or a story about how we came across the wine. It is a mental as well as a physical enjoyment.