Wine appeals to everyone’s taste irrespective of the person being a wine connoisseur or a casual drinker. No wonder most people pick a bottle of wine as a gift when in doubt. Wine never goes out of style. It comes in different price ranges, is easy to wrap and carry, and helps start a conversation.
While most people buy, gift, and store wine, only a few know how to store it correctly. When stored right, wine could stay edible for several hundred years. If you do not store it the right way, it could go bad in a few weeks. So, if you are planning on storing wine at home, make sure you invest in the right wine cooler. But how would you pick a wine cooler from the thousands of options available? Read on!
Wine Cooler vs Refrigerator
A wine cooler is a refrigerator that was designed exclusively for storing wine. A wine cooler, however, is different from a regular refrigerator in several aspects. Wine has to be stored at 45 to 65 degrees, whereas juice, milk, and other beverages need to be stored at 32 to 40 degrees. Besides that, the odor from other foods might spoil the taste of your wine. So, it is always best to invest in Beverage Coolers, which are designed to retain your wine’s taste, flavor, and texture by containing the humidity and maintaining a steady temperature. A wine cooler is a refrigerator that was designed exclusively for storing wine.
However, a wine cooler is different from a regular refrigerator in several aspects. Also, it is less expensive than a regular refrigerator, which means you will save money by investing in a wine cooler rather than a second refrigerator.
Budget
If you need a wine cooler for your personal collection, you might not be looking at many amenities. A compact wine cooler, which is ideal for small-scale collecting, could cost around 100 dollars. On the other hand, huge wine storage units and walk-in wine coolers which could hold over 15o bottles of wine could cost you over 1000 dollars. Once you decide on your budget, needs, and space, picking a wine cooler would be relatively easy.
How Much Wine Do You Wish to Store?
Based on the quantity of wine you wish to store, the size of the wine cooler changes. If you add a wine cooler for decorative purposes and do not have a huge collection, a tiny cooler would do the job. But if you are a sommelier with a massive collection and loves adding more bottles to the storage, you should buy a bigger one accordingly. There are wine coolers that can hold as little as 12 bottles to coolers that can hold over 300 bottles. Based on your collection and possible future purchases, you can decide on the wine cooler capacity.
Think About What Type of Wine You’ll Be Storing – Reds, Whites, Or Both?
If wine bottles are stored only for red wine, you’ll need less wine storage capacity. However, if wine coolers will be storing whites as well, they should have a larger space allotment upfront to accommodate the different sizes and shapes of white wine bottles.
It’s also important to take into consideration whether or not there is enough room inside that particular cooler design for custom wine racks which make more room available by allowing taller displays built-in with adjustable shelving so it can accommodate full height display stacks while still providing adequate regular bottle placement when not on display near the top.
How Long Do You Wish to Store?
While everyone knows that wine gets better with age, this does not apply to all wine types. A few varieties of wine need to be consumed within a year or two, while a few can last over a hundred years. Speyer Wine Bottle was found in a tomb of a Roman soldier in 1857, and experts believe that the drink dates back to 325-350 AD. Researchers believe that the wine is still edible due to the way it was prepared and stored. However, not all wine can be stored this way. So, based on the quality and type of wine, you have to decide on the storage time.
If you wish to store wine for longer periods, you should pick a cooler that has horizontally. This will keep the cork moist and prevent oxidization of the drink. When the cork dries up, it could also break while you are trying to unscrew it.
Energy Consumption
Like a refrigerator, a wine cooler has a compressor too, which helps maintain the temperature of the wine. As the cabinet uses electricity to cool the drink and maintain uniform humidity, the cooler could start heating up in the back. A regular wine cooler would use around 90 watts, and there would be very little power consumption if you are storing less than 30 bottles of wine. The more the number of bottles, the higher the power consumption. Based on the size of your wine cooler, the cooler would add around three to nine dollars to your monthly power bill, which is not a lot. Always connect your wine cooler to an earth connection plug for personal safety.
Single vs. Dual Zone
White and red wine are the two popular types of wine. If you collect all wine types, you would need a dual-zone wine cooler to set and store each of them in different temperatures. Alternatively, if you have just one wine type, you can invest in single-zone wine storage. The single-zone coolers do not have partition and maintain a uniform temperature in the entire unit. This means you cannot set a few wine bottles to stay in preserving conditions while preparing a few to serve. Based on your wine collection, consumption patterns, and storage needs, you can choose between a single-zone or a double-zone wine cooler.
Consider your wine collection, type, budget, and storage space before investing in a wine cooler. Take into consideration all these aspects of buying a wine cooler while you research. It will also help if you ask fellow wine collectors for suggestions and recommendations.