I’ve been looking for a small (24-50) bottle wine cooler to install behind our bar. I’ve found everything from $150 -$2500. Looking for something modest in both price and design to store everyday whites / sparkling and hoping to stay in the sub-$400 range. Anyone have any experience with something that has lasted and maintained constant temp without being too loud?
Amazon has some selections as does Wine Enthusiast. I know Lowe’s and Home Depot have some as well.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Steve and I have had a ~50 bottle wine fridge from Sears (Kenmore) brand for about six years now. It was under $300, it’s quiet, it can accommodate Burg/Champagne bottles, it does a good job of maintaining a consistent temperature, and it’s reasonably inoffensive in appearance.
Melissa. Thanks so much. Going to check out Sears. I hadn’t even thought about going there. 6 years with no issues is great!
THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL in choosing a mini wine fridge is to make sure that you can close the door without shredding your thumb.
For reasons that I don’t understand [or maybe because of the absence of reason altogether], the industry insists on shipping appliances [fridges, microwaves, dishwashers, etc] with doors that are hung so that you catch your thumb in a jam and rip it all to pieces.
And don’t get me started on contractors who install their countertops with zero clearance so that e.g. the mere act of closing the door on your dishwasher leaves you with only four fingers.
One other thing - with many of the mini wine fridges, if you set the temperature to maximum, then you will freeze your wine [literally].
Personally I doubt that that hurts the wine all that much, but it does seem to spur some sort of tartaric crystal business so that the wine will get all cloudy afterwards [or at least the whites seem to].
So learn the temperature behavior of the fridge [and/or dial it back just a little from maximum] before you put anything in there that you really care about [e.g. something that you might want to resell at auction].
U-Line makes a wide variety of choices at good prices . . .
Great info. Thanks guys. Good thing to consider about the door opening in the space it will be in. I’ve checked out the U-Line offerings. Very nice stuff, but the ones I have seen are more than I want to spend right now. This is really just a more convenient storage outside the cellar for everyday drinkers. Sears has a few and Vinotemp has a good selection for under $500.
We have a U-Line at the house that has been great for the last 17 years, but it was $500 back then.
We picked up two Magic Chef 50 bottle units from Home Depot at $299 each on sale. I built them into the bar at our store. The units had a choice of temp settings, 47 degrees for white wines and 56 for reds. Fat bottles are a tight fit, but the shelves are removeable. They’ve been pretty good units so far. Best yet, they have stainless and and smoked glass doors with no markings at all. If you want somebody to know its from Magic Chef, you have to glue the logo on yourself.