Right now Costco is having a sale on wine fridges, including the Artevino III and a few others. I was hoping to get a recommendation on these from folks who might have them. The sale has made a lot of the prices pretty attractive.
Reversible dual pane low-e glass door with NEW handle protects against ultraviolet and infrared light damage
I have two artevino units for four years now and quite satisfied. Interior lighting is overrated. You have stacked wine bottles on shelves, the light does not travel throughout.
Put the Artevino upside down. Voila!! door opens on the left
(This time seriously). I’ve gat a 10 year old Wine Enthusiast “Build Your Own” 220+/- fridge. Other than cleaning the dust off the air intake, no issues re: reliability. I wouldn’t put it in my living room, but this was meant as a low-cost solution and has been dependable. I’d buy Wine Enthusiast again. Bottle count, as is common, is over-stated, maybe 10% depending on your mix.
Edit: I wouldn’t be surprised if Costco only has right-handed doors, maybe old stock. They do things like that. Can you see one? You may just need to drill a couple holes.
As someone who has purchased expensive items (usually AV equipment) from a company that exits the business; I know first hand the difficult you can have a few years down the road. The availability of parts and support fade with time.
I have the 300-bottle WE unit from Costco and like it a lot. Shelves seems sturdy and it’s relatively quiet. No matter which fridge you get there will be a clear difference between advertised and actual capacity, and this is no exception.
I’m on my second Wine Enthusiast unit (from Costco) and both have crapped out between the 4 and 5 year mark. The biggest thing to note is that these are not repairable, I called dozens of repair shops and most would need even make the trip to come out and look at the unit. When I finally found one who would, he identified the issue as being a leak in the compressor, they don’t manufacture that part so it cannot be replaced and the unit essentially becomes a very heavy and very expensive brick in your home. Buyer beware.
My Artevino has been in the dining room for a couple of years now, very quiet. I agree the lighting is not necessary. My manual says the door can be reversed, but I have not tested that.
I will say the shelves that come with the Artevino are functional, but not that great, especially when loaded. I bought a couple proper shelves with rollers on sale from WE and they are much better.
I had the WE 300 bottle unit.
The capacity is based on removing all the shelves. It actually holds a lot less.
The door hinges on plastic washers that can break. It causes the door to drop about 1/16” when you open it. Which means you end up lifting the door up to close it. An annoyance unless you can find and replace the stupid plastic washers.
I eventually sold it because the large size didn’t work so well in our new house and it looked out of place.
I replaced it with two built in ones. They ended up holding about as much and looked better.
I would expect that the Artevino has the highest build quality coming from Eurocave, for all 3 units I would expect service availability to be extremely limited at best. All of these units have a plate style evaporators and have limited repairability. The upfront cost is higher but Le Cache is just a better product, the cooling units are self contained at the top of the unit and are replaceable with not much more than a screwdriver, why throw out a perfectly good cabinet just because of a mechanical defect.
I also have the 300 WE fridge. Well, actually 2 of them. One is about 3 years old, and the other 3 months.
They made some changes to the unit during that time. It is now about 3 inches taller, but quality of the door and seal seem to have improved. Compressor sounds a bit different, but don’t know which is “better”, and the shelves are no longer adjustable/removable.
By adjusting some shelves in the older one, I can get about 230-240 bottles in it. TBD on the newer version since I’m still working on filling it up.
Overall, I’m very happy with the fridges considering the price. These go on sale and can be had for under $2k all in.
I acquired 2 of the Artevino III’s a few years ago. I think they work well. The door is reversible. The statement that they “Comfortably Hold up to 200 Bottles” is a stretch at best. To get 200 bottles into the unit, you have to stack 2-4 rows on most shelves, and none of the angular display shelves. Stacking rows of bottles mean you can not slide the shelves in and out.