OK...what to drink first (before they start going bad)

[hotwine]

Welcome to the board, jdee. In general, whites should be consumed young, within three years of vintage; reds CAN go longer, but bear in mind over 90% of wines purchased in the U.S. are made to be consumed upon release.... they're not made to age. So all of those you mentioned should be drunk in the near-term.

Suggest you do yourself a favor and check the temperature in your crawl-space cellar over a period of several days. If the temp in there is higher than the ideal range (55-57F), your wines will fade even more quickly. Also, it's probably quite humid in there; if it's 70% or more, you could lose your wine labels, since that kind of RH can loosen the glue so that the labels fall off.

As far as serving the wines with meals: I serve multiple bottles of the same wine, rather than several bottles of different wines. If your pairing is good, you won't need a diversity of offerings.

[This message has been edited by hotwine (edited 07-15-2005).]