We study the definability of ultrafilter bases on \ in the sense of descriptive set theory. As a main result we show that there is no coanalytic base for a Ramsey ultrafilter, while in L we can construct \ P-point and Q-point bases. We also show that the existence of a \ ultrafilter is equivalent to that of a \ ultrafilter base, for \. Moreover we introduce a Borel version of the classical ultrafilter number and make some observations.