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Small wine coolers may be the best route to go if you’re just getting started on a modest wine collection.

Certainly these are a better storage solution than throwing yourself energetically into the purchase of one of the most expensive wine cellar refrigerators on the market just because a reviewer says it’s the best.

If you don’t know for sure that you’re going to be a serious collector, and really just want to keep a few bottles fresh for the time being, the smaller coolers are the best way to get started.

You may still feel like you have very little free space for even one of those small Avanti wine refrigerators, but you might be surprised where you can stick these wine cooling units.

If you’ve got wall space for a sturdy shelf, you might put the little fridge there, or even suspend it from the kitchen cabinetry, the way microwaves often sit these days.

Wine coolers also come in free standing units that are hardly larger than bookcases, so if you’ve got space that could accommodate a bookcase, then chances are you can fit a wine fridge there.

Of course, you’ve probably already guessed that if you enjoy wine, you’re likely going to want to expand your storage space eventually. Small wine coolers will get you started, but that’s probably not where you’re going to stop.

What these coolers will do is get you thinking about what you really need in terms of storage and functionality. This means that next time you buy one of these wine storage refrigerators, you can go larger, but also be even more discriminating about the features you want.

To read more Storing Your Collection With Wine Coolers

The Galt Online Buying Guide (www.galttech.com) considers the Vinotemp and the EuroCave the best wine coolers around. The problem for the average buyer, of course, is that they don’t necessarily have the $1000 to spend on a wine fridge, no matter how great the quality ultimately is.

But looking at Galt’s other recommendations, and those of other review sites, it is suggested that if you leave those higher echelons of quality, then hunting for the best wine bottle refrigerator may be a more difficult task, with less obvious solutions.

There don’t appear to be any refrigerators that can consistently be called the best wine coolers in the single temperature category. Haier and Avanti appear to alternate receiving the best reviews, though other brands also show up on the Modern Wine Cellar’s extensive and detailed review list.

The Avanti wine refrigerator generally does best among dual temperature zone units, though, with one Franklin Chef wine fridge also standing out from the pack in that category.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that if you’re looking for compact wine refrigerators you should automatically go out and buy an Avanti or Haier model, though you’ll have a better chance of success with those.

The variation in even the official reviews means that you should read comments and reviews from regular users as well, to find out what they think are the best wine coolers. Only by learning how the different units operate for regular people in normal usage conditions can you discover which wine fridge will work best for you.

To read more Online Reviews Of The Best Wine Coolers

If you’re looking for the best wine bottle refrigerator, keep in mind that temperature and humidity controls are not the only factors that go into making a fridge that takes the best care of your wine.

Those are vitally important, of course, but sometimes other design elements play just as big a role in creating the best storage situation. Wine cooler refrigerators don’t just need to have good temperature controls, but also must be constructed in ways that prevent damage from other sources as well.

Another thing to be concerned about is whether your bottles experience vibration, especially inside wine cooler refrigerators that are compressor-based. If the sediment in the bottles is disturbed, then the wine’s internal balance could be disrupted and the wine ruined.

Yet refrigerators that use a thermoelectric method of cooling, even though that eliminates vibrations, may not cool as efficiently. You need to choose from wine storage coolers that guarantee freedom from vibration, whether you choose a model that isolates the storage compartment from the compressor compartment, or instead go with a thermoelectric model.

In the meantime, even the light levels can influence how well the wine is preserved. Refrigerated wine cabinets with LED lighting are not the norm, but they can be found if you look hard enough.

Ideally, wine cooler refrigerators with solid doors instead of glass ones prevent daylight or other light sources from damaging the wine with UV light, but at the very least, any glass door should be tinted to protect from this sort of light.

Paying attention to light, temperature, and even vibration may narrow down your choices, but when your wine is being stored in the best possible conditions, you’ll be glad you took the time to find the right wine fridge.

To read more Protecting Your Wine With Wine Cooler Refrigerators

A wine cellar may be your ideal place for storing wine, but if you live in a small home or apartment, then you need to be realistic. Even temporarily, a wine cooler is probably the best method of storing your wine, even if you’re planning on building a small collection.

There probably will be both budget and space considerations to ponder in creating a more permanent solution later, but don’t deprive yourself now. A refrigerated wine cabinet can serve your purposes until your circumstances allow you to move on to something more elaborate.

To keep both red and white wines stored in the best conditions, you have three choices. You might buy two wine bottle refrigerators so you can store the wines at different temperatures, since whites should be cooler than reds.

You could buy one wine fridge and set the thermostat halfway between the two recommended high and low temperatures. Or you could get a wine cooler that has two internal temperature zones, so each type of wine can be stored in the same fridge, under the right conditions.

What you’re looking for, ideally, is a wine cooler that has good control of the conditions in which you’re keeping the wine, and the ability to respond to changes in those conditions with a degree of speed.

If the room temperature goes up, this fridge should be insulated enough and responsive enough to prevent the internal temperature from going up too. You want a wine cabinet that will take your budget into account, but still let you store your wine in the proper way.

To read more Small Space With A Wine Cooler

Those who can’t afford yet another appliance, or have no space for it, usually have no choice but to use a regular kitchen fridge to keep their wine. But a wine cooler refrigerator really is the better choice for this, if you find it possible to buy one.

Even the smallest of these wine storage coolers is likely to do a better job of keeping the optimum temperature and humidity conditions for your wine, and it will also maintain these conditions in a more consistent way.

Consistency is a key word in proper wine storage, and temperature is the major issue. The temperature in a regular kitchen refrigerator fluctuates up and down for all sorts of reasons.

Everyone is aware that their fridge turns its cooling function on and off, precisely because of these changes. Add to this the fluctuations from the door opening and closing so often, and there’s no real consistency at all.

Nor do most people even know what the actual temperature is in the fridge to begin with. A wine cooler refrigerator allows much more control and stability than this.

Unless you’re buying quite a small wine cooler refrigerator, though, you can probably do better than compromise on the temperature between white and red wines. Many available models have dual-zone, meaning there are separate temperature zones for each type of wine.

You would store the whites in the cooler section and the reds in a slightly warmer section. But large or small, almost all versions of these wine bottle refrigerators will allow you to store your wine in rather better conditions than anything you can achieve with the kitchen fridge.

To read more Optimal Storage Of Wine With A Wine Cooler Refrigerator

A real wine cellar tends to be an underground room in which conditions are ideal for the proper storing and aging of wine. Historically, in many of these cellars or even caves, these conditions have often been so natural that the function succeeded even without any artificial climate controls.

The problem is, of course, that not everyone can create this sort of underground room in their own home, so they are left using compact wine refrigerators instead, which don’t preserve wine for nearly as long or as perfectly.

However, if they decide to use a wine room, they can still enjoy most of the functions of the original wine cellars.

One of the great advantages of this kind of wine cellar is that it can be made of prefabricated parts and brought in to take up just one corner of a person’s home, perhaps in a basement or even a spare bedroom.

It can have a simple design or have decorative doors and windows, and will come with locks as well for extra protection. Unlike even the best refrigerated wine cabinets, this unit can have its conditions regulated enough for aging the wine and storing it for the long term.

Smaller wine bottle refrigerators don’t need to be the only choice available to someone who has no way to extend their home or who lives in an apartment.

They can have all the benefits of a real wine cellar by adding one of these wine rooms, either in a basement corner, extra bedroom, or even a corner of a living or dining room if they have the space.

Adding refrigeration and careful climate controls, individuals can store their wine collections in rooms that recreate the effects of the original wine cellars.

To read more Better Storage With A Wine Cellar

It’s unfortunate, but the GE wine cooler may not have been General Electric’s best idea. When you look for product reviews to see what people think of GE’s wine cooling units, one of the first things you notice in the list of coolers is the repeated phrase “No longer available.”

Over the years, it seems the company has made many different kinds of wine storage coolers, but most just don’t seem to exist now. Certainly very few are listed on GE’s own website, even though some are still being sold by appliance stores. That’s a red flag right there.

Why does the GE wine cooler fare so badly in comparison to other types of wine storage refrigerators? The wide range of customer reviews that are out there may convey a few hints.

It seems the performance of GE’s wine refrigerators have been all over the place. Some work beautifully, others run too loudly, still others die quickly, and some people find that the shelving is too uniform in size and can’t accommodate anything but very standard bottles. And there was more than one mention of bad customer service.

Making wine storage coolers may just not be General Electric’s primary area of expertise. Not every appliance company can excel with every type of appliance, and the GE wine cooler may be an example of this.

Certainly, with most other wine refrigerators that get great reviews, creating these units is often the manufacturer’s primary business. So among wine refrigerators, it appears that the better option is to choose one of those manufacturers instead, and in the case of this appliance, give General Electric a pass.

To read more Online Customer Reviews For The GE Wine Cooler

Wine refrigerators are made to serve at least some of the purposes of the original underground wine cellars, as they store wine in cool, atmospherically controlled conditions.

Of course there are differences between a real wine cellar and one of these newer appliances that might bear the same name, because wine cellar refrigerators can’t be used for long term storage or aging of wine. But as well as keeping most wine ready to drink for several months, they now often have a dual function, which is to serve as actual furniture in the home.

You might think these wine cellars would be purely utilitarian, especially if they’re kept in a kitchen somewhere, but many models can actually be designed to be part of the larger decorative scheme of the room.

This may not be the case so much with under counter wine refrigerators that are built into the lower cabinetry like a dishwasher. Yet even that sort of wine fridge can be designed with a front panel to match either the cabinetry itself or the surfaces of the large appliances.

The primary function of these wine bottle refrigerators is the same as the long-time function of the original wine cellars whose name they often bear, which is to store and preserve wine for an extended period of time.

But they also serve functions unlike anything those cellars have ever done. As well as preserving wine, they are also being used as actual furniture, standing with other pieces as important elements in the design scheme of the entire home.

To read more Wine Cellars Decorating Your Home

There are considerable differences between even refrigerated wine cellars and a small wine refrigerator you buy to put in your kitchen.

A genuine wine cellar often doesn’t even need refrigeration, being deep enough in the ground to be cooled naturally, but whether it’s artificially cooled or not, it tends to have much more temperature, humidity and even light consistency than a wine fridge.

A wine bottle refrigerator can serve very well for keeping wine ready to drink for a few months, but for long-term storage and aging of finer wines, it is an imperfect solution.

In a compressor-based wine bottle refrigerator, you could find the temperature fluctuating up to five degrees as the compressor cycles, which could adversely affect finer wines, and not keep even the more ordinary wines stable for much longer.

Combine this problem with a plastic interior liner, and cool temperatures are not easy to maintain consistently. A thermoelectric wine refrigerator, having solid state pumps with no moving parts, will reduce both temperature fluctuations and damaging vibrations, yet doesn’t cool the wine as efficiently as a compressor-based fridge.

A person who is serious about storing wine must always differentiate between a wine cellar and the smaller refrigerated wine cabinets. No review sites, like the Galt Buying Guide (www.galttech.com) for example, will ever equate the two, recognizing that wine refrigerators are best suited only for short-term storage.

A wine bottle refrigerator will never be a full substitute for a full-fledged wine cellar, particularly when it comes to storing fine wine that needs to age for longer than a few months.

To read more Short Term Storage With A Wine Bottle Refrigerator

It may be Thanksgiving, Christmas Day or a promotion at work. This is a perfect time for wine and cheese gift baskets. If you are looking to give a unique gift, with contents that will please the recipient, then you may need to do some research.

Discreetly, find out if your friend likes wine and his favourite choice of wine. You do not need to tell him that you are about present him with a gift, just ask him about his favourite food, then move on to cheese, coffee and wine.

You may even ask about food allergies, to ensure you do not include the wrong food in the gift basket. By knowing his preferences and allergies, you know his favourite choice of food to include in wine and cheese baskets.

To read more Better Ideas For Wine And Cheese Gift Baskets