How to Choose a Wine Cooler
When choosing a wine cooler for your growing wine collection, the size of the cooler you choose is an important factor to consider before you buy one. Wine coolers can range in size from twelve bottle capacity to a hundred bottles or more. The first thing you need to decide is how many bottles of wine you think you might be storing in the wine cooler. If you’re just an occasional wine drinker and want to keep a couple of bottles around for those special dinners and guests, you’ll probably just need to buy a small twelve bottle wine cooler. This will allow you to properly store your occasional-use wines in a ready-to-serve state.
If you want to start more of a collection of wine, you’ll want to buy a wine cooler that holds more than what you would generally use yourself. Considering a wine cooler that holds around 24-50 bottles of wine is a good place to start. Decide how many bottles you want to keep in your wine collection and double that number. So, if you’re thinking you want to keep around 25 bottles at a time you’ll want to buy a 50 bottle capacity wine cooler. This is due to the fact that your wine collection will most likely grow past your initial estimate and you’ll want to have plenty of room for them when it does.
The things to look for in a good wine cooler are reliable temperature and humidity controls, quality insulation and shelving racks, ultraviolet light protection, and minimized vibration. Consistency in temperature and humidity is very important when storing wine, so being able to monitor these levels is essential. Digital controls and readouts can make this much easier for you.
The interior of the wine cooler should be well insulated and made of aluminum, rather than plastic, because aluminum conducts warm and cool air more effectively. The shelving racks inside the wine cooler should ideally be made of wood, rather than wire, and should roll out for easier accessibility to the bottles of wine inside.
While you may want to gaze for hours on end at your wine collection through the glass doors of your cooler, it’s actually better to have one that has solid doors. This keeps the harmful UV rays that can damage your wine far away from the bottles inside. If you simply must have glass doors, at least get ones that are coated with a UV protector.
Vibration is a huge concern when it comes to purchasing a quality wine cooler. It’s not a good idea to keep your wine collection in a regular refrigerator because the vibration from the motor can damage the wine. While wine coolers also have motors, they generally have added protection to prevent the wine from feeling the effects of the vibration. Things to look for are rubber coated racks that minimize vibrations or rubber mounted compressors that eliminate shaking altogether and keeps your wine protected.
Of course, if you’re going to invest in a wine cooler that holds a hundred bottles or more, you definitely want to look for the more reputable, higher quality models that are available. Most of these larger models are smaller than your average refrigerator, so finding space for one will not be too difficult in most homes or even apartments. So, whether you’re just starting out small with a dozen bottles or want to always have a hundred bottles to choose from at any given time, your wine cooler needs can easily be met.
