I bought this to replace the Vinotemp that failed after 17 months. I like it better than the Vinotemp so far, although I have some issues with the design. As has been said elsewhere, this thing is large and heavy. The delivery company said “White Glove” was not included, and they refused to move it into the basement. By paying an “unboxing and haul off fee” of $40, they would unbox it and move it into the garage. It was too tall on the shipping pallet to stand up in the garage, and I was not leaving it in the driveway. Cost me another $150 (including tip) to hire two guys on the “thumbtack” app to move it into the basement. No stairs, one door, total move of about 30’, but parts with a low ceiling. That was a bargain.
I like the shelves. They are on roller glides and work good when fully loaded. Makes access fairly easy. It seems pretty quiet running, although since it’s in a finished basement that sees little use that’s not a big deal. I like the “VinoView” shelves a lot. I use it to be able to see the better bottles, and to give me a hint about what else is on the shelf.
It seems that there may be different versions of this out there. Looking at it in the garage, still thinking that my son and I could move it, I figured removing the shelves would lighten it a little. The instruction book that came with it said to slide them all the way out and lift off. That did not work. Went to the Costco web site and looked at the manual there, and it shows levers on the slide to lift up or press down. Mine has no levers. As far as I can tell the only way to remove my shelves is to unscrew the wood from the metal slide. I decided that saving maybe 15 lbs. from the 325 lb. weight was not worth it.
The big issue with any of these is the stated capacity. 300 if they are all pretty much “standard” Bordeaux bottles. And that’s where I have some issues. First, I realize that the wine makers want to have a distinctive look and feel to their product, but it makes storage in these a real pain. I’m glad to see that some makers are getting away from the massive or odd sized bottles. Second, and this gripes me more, is that the designers of these refrigerators know that most bottles out there won’t be an easy fit. Another .25" or so on each shelf would make a huge difference. Not so much for the really large bottles, but for the “Large California Red” bottles, as Wine Enthusiast calls them. That includes most of the de Negoce bottles. There is a large open shelf on the bottom that is handy for magnums, but they could have reduced that by 3" or so to increase the shelf height on the rest. With standard bottles on the bottom row, some non-standard bottles will fit on top, and the shelf above won’t interfere with them. I did find that some of the shelves I thought I had packed with care started to sag a bit after a few weeks and began to hit the bottles below. Another .25" would have made it much better.
Hopefully, this will last longer than the last one. I had planned to use it for the better wines, or the ones that need a lot more time. What I ended up doing was sorting bottles by size and using “standard” or nearly standard bottles on the bottom, then seeing which of the better ones would fit on the second row. It just seems strange to have to do that, when so many bottles are not “standard.” I’ll also be looking a lot closer at the configuration of any bottles I buy in the future.