I initially planned on going with the Costco WE 300 bottle fridge (now $1700), then decided what the heck and had an actual wine cellar priced out for me. That was so expensive it actually made the Le Cache seem like a pretty solid in between alternative / wine cellar replacement. Thinking about the Contemporary 3800 (458 bottle)…on a capacity-adjusted basis (and with shipping) it’s about 2.5x the Costco one, but given the expected life of the units (and the fact that you can replace the cooling unit on LC down the road, not the whole thing), I think the LC is a reasonable option. I also need something aesthetically pleasing since I don’t have a basement and this needs to sit in one of our main living spaces.
I guess next best option in terms of quality / price would have been the Artevino at Costco but they don’t seem to have those anymore
Hello everyone! I just joined the forum and was hoping I could solicit some advice on a wine fridge. I’ve been looking at picking up the 200 bottle Artevino III from Costco; however, the Allavino VSWR177 has caught my eye. It’s on sale now making it cheaper than the Artevino as well as the styling and the ability to accommodate more of my bottles. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with the brand and can comment to the reliability of the compressor and any other relevant thoughts regarding them. It’s mainly for Barolo and German Riesling that I’m sitting on. Thank you!
Jesus Christ… I just looked up all these units mentioned and I do not have that kind of expendable capital to spend in order to store my lot of 90 bottles… Is there a cheaper option to all of this? Has anyone decided maybe an alternative situation instead of these units? I mean wow I know it was going to run some money but I guess im way over my head on how much a decently priced wine collection and storage costs… And I thought the wine trips would be the expensive parts…
Plenty of less expensive options - most of the units discussed above are for hundreds of bottles and are higher end units. My understanding is this is mostly a get-what-you-pay-for product, in addition to the quality of temperature control / humidity, higher end units tend to reliably last 10-15 years (or more) while the cheaper units have a much higher risk of failure in the 3-7 year range (just ballparking these #s). That said, it’s a tradeoff, and for many it probably makes more sense to get a unit that will do perfectly fine albeit likely won’t last as long.
Can browse Costco (https://www.costco.com/wine-cellars-coolers.html) or search wine coolers on Home Depot / Best Buy etc and find plenty of options. If you’re looking for really cheap I’m not sure there are great options for 50+ bottles well below ~$500 though, maybe someone else can chime in if they know. I did have a 28 bottle unit from Home Depot (brand was AKDY) I bought for $140 on sale, not seeing any similar options right now but I’m sure there’s something comparable out there. It lasted (at least) 3 years and I left it behind when I moved, but I can’t comment as to the quality in terms of temperature or humidity, it was just a serviceable way to keep some bottles out of the higher temps / fluctuations of our apartment.
Does anyone have recommendation for good units that are value buys? About 100 or 150 for storage? The price points of what some people are recommending to me is way out of my price range. I guess I’m not looking to expand the collection until i have more experience in wine. But I have to find a long term storage option soon.
So I do have some experience…
I have a general generic frig for beer/ run over main frig food in the garage. 2 weeks ago it stopped working due to temp in the gqrage ( it was 38?)
i had to put an inkbird controller on it to have it run at this or colder garage temp as the outside thermostat was basically tell the frig to shut off as the ambient temp was cold enough.
I wouldnt trust keeping a eurocave in the garage honestly my gqrage is slab on 1 side, 1/2 slab on the other with insulation the top 1/2), ceiling is insulated with living area above it., back end abutting the basement ( which is about 68ish in winter due to boiler running) and it has 2 garage door with no added insulation on them
Hello everyone! Very new to (better) wine and I found this place while researching wine glasses. I have 2 small, entry level, wine fridges (54 capacity) and I have a question about planning. How do you plan for when you’re cooler/fridge ultimately fails? They’re both brand new so hopefully a long time away but still a scary thought, especially as I get into more and more expensive wines.
I pulled the trigger on my 2nd Artevino III once the sale kicked in. Very happy with the purchase. Now I debate if I should go to the trouble of swapping the orientation of one of the doors so they both swing outward. Has anyone done this? Is it hard to do?
I’m also curious if anyone has come up with a good organization system with the wood shelves. When I had just the one unit, I basically jammed in the bottles where ever they would fit – so I would have all different types of wine all mixed together how. Now that I have two, I would like to be a bit more organized about it. Unfortunately, oversized bottles create a headache with the shelving system.
I wouldn’t worry too much about this. The only two instances I can imagine in which you would have a problem would be 1) if the failure resulted in the refrigerator heating rather than cooling the interior and if the failure occurred with the unit(s) placed in an otherwise hot environment (Southern California garage in the summer). In either case your big problem is knowing that the failure has occurred so that you can either 1) pull the plug on the unit or 2) relocate the wine to somewhere cooler (inside the house). There are temperature monitoring devices available that will alert you if the temp strays beyond a set range but the cost of these systems might not make sense for 54 bottle coolers. In any other failure event where the wine simply reaches room temperature, it will be fine until you can source another cooler.
Thank you for the response Eric! I guess my fear was that if the wines had to go from 55 deg to 68-70, in a short period of time, there would be an adverse effect on the wine. I’m very glad to hear that is not the case. I have a thermometer in one of them that I can set an alarm for and maybe I will get one for the other as well. Thanks again.