updated in 2010

How to pick your wine refrigerator

Wine refrigerators are cabinets with integrated cooling systems. These are useful for people who do not have access to a wine cellar. Here is how to select a wine cabinet.

Wine cabinet coolers

Wine cabinet cooler
© 2009, by Ollybuckley

The relevant criterion therefore is the capacity to align bottles, as shown in the picture.

Wine refrigerators

Wine refrigerators ensure that temperature is stable. The ideal temperature for ageing can be anything between 50°F and 60°F (between 10°C and 15°C).

Before your buy your wine cellar make sure that it produces very little vibration. Choose a plain door as opposed to a window. Ultraviolet light and vibration can quickly accelerate the ageing process of your wine or destroy it outright.

Set the wine fridge up anywhere free of undue vibration.

Wine rack plans

Restaurant wine rack © 2007, by Alpha Vei-Chor Lau, (license)

Wine refrigerators can store dozens of bottles. Vendors usually indicate the number of (standard) bottles that you can store in the cabinet. The wines would thus be lying ones under others, ones behind others, unreachable.

In order for you to easily reach your bottles, you may order a few shelves. Every added shelf reduces the total capacity of the wine cabinet. I am personally confortable with having three rows of bottles per shelf: one row of bottlenecks facing me and two rows of bottle bases.

Also bear in mind that wine bottles come in different forms.

How many bottles will you keep? Be careful to buy according to your needs.