A great book for Winevestors is ‘Keys to the Cellar’ by Peter D. Meltzer. Meltzer has been writing about wine collecting and auctions in the Wine Spectator for the last twenty years. He uses this experience to guide readers through wine collecting and its many eccentricities. This aspect of wine is rarely written about and is a key part of a passion for wine.

Meltzer is well connected and he writes about being part of a wealthy, generous group of wine collectors who share their wine with a small group of wine fanatics, which includes Meltzer. This combined with Meltzer’s Passport to New York Restaurants, Wine Spectator’s Collecting section, and his stewardship of the Wine Spectator Auction Index gives him great credentials for writing this book.

The books chapters which are largely self explanatory are:

• A Cellar to Fit your Lifestyle
• Relating to your Retailer
• Buying and Selling at Auction
• Wine on the Web
• Storing and Enjoying your Wine
• Collecting: A Brief Background
• Beyond Wine: The Accessories

Two of my favorite chapters are the first and the penultimate. The first identifies good cellars for different types of collector. See which cellar fits you. The latter does a brief time travel through collecting and auctions and finishes in some individual tales on how others have approached collecting. Great fun.