Good call on storage. Too many people starting out miss this one key factor.
As for suggestions, my first suggestion would be to assemble a case of assorted wines and give them all a try to see what you think.
It will be many more cases before you have a real clear vision of exactly what you want from wine, but this is a good starting point before you begin to cellar wines.
Here is a short list of some things I recommend you seek out. A couple are a bit over $30, but should be under $40. Some are also under $10, but make great intros to certain wine types (and are pretty good in their own right.)
White burgundy
Louis Latour Grande Ardeche Joseph Drouhin Pouilly Fuisse Ramonet Bourgogne Aligote (hard to find, but worth the effort)
Red Burgundy
Claude Dugat Bourgogne- 2001 is current release, be wary of the 2000 Bertrand Ambroise Bourgogne (the 2001 is outstanding and a good one to cellar a bit, $15!)
Gascony
Domaine de Pouy
Bordeaux (as a general rule the 1999s are very friendly and forward wines, high quality too and overlooked with all the 2000 vintage hype)
Chateau Meyney 1999 Chateau Talbot 1999 Chateau Montrose 1999 Blanc de Lynch Bages Climens (sweet Bordeaux dessert wine, seek out half bottles of 1996-1999) Rieussec 1999 (another great Bordeaux dessert wine, top QPR here)
Alsace, France
Trimbach Riesling, Tokay Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer (3 good intros to Alsace wines) Zind-Humbrecht- a wide range of wines in your range, all worth sampling
Germany
Muller-Catoir (anything they make) Kurt Darting (anything they make)
Italy
Gaja Promis 2001 (I had this at a trade tasting and it is one of their best ever, stunning!!!!) Allegrini Pallazo della Torre
That is a small smattering of goodies covering Europe. I am not terribly up to date with the latest and greatest from the US (I was ITB in college and got a lot of free trade samples), so hopefully someone else will come along with some thoughts there.
Here in NYC Astor W&S has a "Cellar-In-A-Box" mixed case that tries to cover as much terr....itory (resisting the urge to pun) as possible in a case. You might try asking your local shops if they do something like that. Astor's approach doesn't stick in the same price range, they try to balance some cheapies against higher priced stuff for special occasions. Now that I think about it, no reason you couldn't use their list as a starting point and substitute where you'd see fit:
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