I’m looking for a solid but reasonably priced silver unit as part of my upcoming kitchen remodel. Mostly to keep a small drink-soon cache of whites at 50-ish degrees for serving.
Home Depot has several no-name brands in the $350-600 range. The brand name ones seem 2-4x that price and I struggle to see that being worth it.
I welcome recommendations both specific and general. Thanks.
I just got a bosch counter depth fridge that has built in wine fridge. Holds about 17 bottles. Perfect amount to always have a nice selection of ready to go whites
Costco currently has a Vinotemp on sale for $620 through Friday: https://www.costco.com/vinotemp-28-bottle-wine-cooler-with-dual-zone-cooler-and-touch-screen-controls.product.100674323.html
Please explain 15”
Presumably not the width?
Yes 15 inches wide. Fits about 3 bottles across. That’s the smallest width. 24 inches seems to be the larger size
Chris - Plan on a standard size so that it’s plug and play if it needs to be replaced. The holidays like Independence Day and Labor Day are terrific sales days. When we purchased one to keep bottles cold for customers who came to the winery we got an inexpensive 2 zone temp model. Holds about 25-30 bottles.
That’s fantastic. I’ll probably get that one unless someone else has a better suggestion. Many thanks.
I bought a Brand X at Home Depot. At first, it wasn’t very cold. Then it broke.
You get what you pay for.
Other than that, how was it?
Unless you are really tight for space and or your cellar is close to kitchen or dining room, you might consider a larger unit if space permits. Then you can keep a bigger selection of current drinkers. - bubbles, reds and roses as well. I’m guessing 15” unit holds 15 or 18 bottles which isn’t a lot.
Also - check your unit will handle champagne and fatter burgundy bottles.
It says 28 but applying the “wine cabinets all lie about capacity” adjustment 18 probably sounds realistic.
There is actually plenty of room, we are doing a kitchen remodel and the kitchen will be very large. But I wasn’t really looking for real storage, more just for short term small selection at lower serving temperature. I have probably close to 1,000 bottle temp controlled storage in the house.
A question prompted by your post:
How low of a temperature can you store whites at before you get tartrate crystals?
Is the answer different for Champagne?
I have learned over the years that estimates of needed wine storage are always low. 
We just did a kitchen reno, 99% complete. We have a 24” under counter wine fridge that holds 79-80 bottles. Our kitchen is small, 22’ x 8’ approx, but from experience with previous kitchen went with a bigger unit than before. Plus it was “free” as part of summer sales promotion at the appliance store (along with other discounts and ‘no tax’). Noname Hisense “brand”, $800 Can approx. Single zone. Seems to work well, no idea of long term reliability of course. Only snag its iffy on oversized bottles.
One other thing to consider (you probably have) is do you want just wine fridge, or a “beverage” fridge to ease the load on your main fridge. Those can also handle some upright bottles, which is great for open wines. Our friends have a Kitchenaid which they are happy with. More denarii of course. And fewer wine bottles.
Our main cabinets are close by in the basement so the kitchen selection really is lower end daily drinkers.
Very nice Richard. What is the depth of that unit to go two deep?
Nobody preaches that more than I do. But in this instance, I’m not really trying to expand storage, just making serving whites a bit easier.
I think this is wine specific. Wineries can cold stabilize the wine to precipitate the tartaric acid before bottling.
Counter depth. I’ll gig out the specs.
Hey another question.
If you keep a partially open recorked bottle of white in the 50ish kitchen fridge, and thus it sits on its side, does it deteriorate faster than upright? Because of the surface area?
Ive got a similar unit, kitchenaid built-in 24” wide, but its 2zone so that hurts capacity. The storage specs are always for the bordeaux bottles, and bigger bottles for chardonnays can be a challenge. For example, in mine, i can pnly fit a big chardonnay/bubbles bottle on the top shelf. Not all the shelves are same height. I probably have 40 or so bottles in mine.
I will say its great for 375’s and normal chards and cabs; pinots can cause issue depending on bottle. Goodfellow chards only fits on top shelf and its snug.
Its great for entertaining. My wife knows anything in there is fair game at all times when someone comes over, without having to worry if it was a special bottle to save or not.
So one or two each of
I have no data, sorry.
Open bottles are upright in the main fridge. (It’s also colder).
