Wine Fridge/Refrigerator Reviews Information and Purchasing Guide

The wine business is experiencing solid growth as Baby Boomers near retirement living and have lots of discretionary money to pay on items like wine. Also, the younger generation now has access to wine bars in all major cities and their taste for fine wine is increasing too. The need for home wine refrigerators used to be a niche current market but it’s gaining steam as younger and younger wine drinkers are to buy wine coolers to put in their homes. If you are just starting, like I am, consider a smaller wine refrigerator (40-50 bottles), but nothing too tiny. A general rule of thumb amongst wine guides is to buy a wine bucket that has double the capacity of what you think you will use. The thinking about behind this is that your collection will probably grow over time and the need for available space will growth. You want a wine fridge that has premium insulation and will keep your bottles at a constant 55 degree temperature and at about 50-70% humidity levels. When storage wine, temperature and humidity are key factors in maintaining the premium of the wine. If the humidity is too, the cork will dried and if it’s too high you can get mold.
For the interior of any wine refrigerator, you want ones that have aluminum (preferred over plastic). Aluminum interiors in wine storage systems will conduct cold and heat better than the lower priced plastic wine fridges. For humidity control and maintenance, try to find wine refrigerators with a pebbled lining. Different from common kitchen refrigerators that have solid doors, so many wine coolers come with glass doors so the owner can view the wine or be seen to his/her guests. The glass doors are actually more high-cost than those with solid doors and they don’t insulate nearly as well. Keep any glass doored wine refrigerator away from sunlight or get it protected with a UV finish since wines that are exposed to sunlight can be damaged. Vibration control is another feature to consider when to buy a wine refrigerator. Wine should not be shaken and the compressors on fridges vibrate a bit when they are turned on or off. To alleviate this problem, so many wine fridges come with specially coated racks that grip your wine or champagne bottles and limit vibrations. Others have compressors that are mounted on rubber blocks to eliminate the shaking. The vibration control devices are most commonly find in higher priced wine coolers from Viking or Sub-Zero. The interior shelving is definitely a feature you want to look at closely. The better units come with wood racks while normal models have only chrome/wire shelves. If the shelfing rolls out your job of stocking the wine bucket will be much easier. Test this aspect in the store when you go to look at some. Dual zone wine refrigerators are great for storage both red and white wine at different temps. Lastly, some models have locks (great if you have smaller children or teenagers) and alarms to let you know if you incidentally left the door ajar.

Budget/Value Wine Refrigerator:

The Danby Silhouette DWC512BLS got mixed articles in wine forums, but we find enough positive things on this model that we decided to include it here. It’s certainly not a higher priced model, but owners say the “value” is there and they like the way it was designed to be both freestanding and a zero clearance built-in undercounter model. The Danby wine fridge holds 51 wine bottles, has dual temperature zones for red and white wine storage, 7 full width wooden shelves, a tempered glass door with stainless steel frame, and a humidity reservior. The Danby wine refrigerator has a 5-year limited warranty. Owners say it can be a bit loud at times and they also wish it had aluminum interior instead of the plastic.