Spring is in the air and many people’s thoughts now turn to entertaining with parties and picnics. There are few things nicer than enjoying a nice glass of wine with friends and family. With the growth in wine drinkers in the US, an increase in wine coolers has also occurred. These handy appliances are a great way to store your collection of wine. There are literally dozens of wine cooler manufacturers each of whom offer multiple and some time dozens of wine cooler models for you to choose from. This means that you will not have any problem finding a wine cooler. The problem will be deciding which one out of the dozens and dozens of models is the right one for you.
Wine coolers range in price from less than one hundred dollars to well over a thousand dollars. Generally, wine coolers go up in price as storage capacity increases and you add premium features. Sure, that wine refrigerator that holds 180 bottles is $1800 dollars, but do you really need that much wine storage? Most people will be fine with a wine refrigerator that stores in the range of 20-30 bottles. You can find wine coolers with a single temperature zone as well as wine coolers with dual temperature zones which allow you to store different varieties of wine at 2 different temperatures. This is very convenient, but a dual temperature wine refrigerator will be more expensive than an equivalent single zone cooler. You can always go old school and either let the bottle sit out to warm it to the correct serving temperature, or put it in an ice bucket to cool it to the correct serving temperature.
Built in or freestanding, that is the question? Built in wine coolers will look sleeker and more professional, but there are a variety of quality free standing coolers that will work quite well if a built in is out of the question. Especially if you are only looking for a cooler that holds a few bottles. The other big question is compressor cooled or thermoelectric cooled. Thermoelectric cooled wine coolers have an advantage in that they are vibration free which is an important consideration for certain types of wines. They can also be quieter, but they will still have fan systems to exhaust the waste heat, so they will not in general run silent.
The main thing to remember when you are looking for a new wine cooler is to know what features are important to you. Once you know that, just pick your price point and start browsing for the perfect wine refrigerator.