best wine refridgerators

[KSmith3011]

My wife and I are beginning to look at small wine refrigerators for under the counter in our kitchen. There are so many choices I was hoping the good folks here would have some input. We like the look of the slim coolers that hold about 27 bottles. Anyone have advice?

 

[djrockinsteve]

We have a vissani and it holds 52 bottles. It's great except it pops when the chiller pump turns off. Reason is excess oil in the line. Google the name and you will understand. I went thru 3 of them and all were the same.

 

[Sudz]

My wife and I have gone through several of the smaller wine refrigerators.

The first one was from the local box store. It worked well but we had difficulty getting it to adjust high enough. If you wanted 50*F it was okay but if you wanted 60*F you were out of luck. It also had wild temp cycle extremes between the on and off cycles. This was something we didn't notice until I placed a digital thermometer inside which captured min and max readings. 10 + degrees were not uncommon.

We gave that one away and got a larger unit which appeared more, shall we say "professional". It would adjust okay but it also had large temp swings and was noisy.

Sold it and bought a model made by GE which was recommended by a local wine club. It has been fantastic. Tight control (digital) and dead quiet. But it was close to $500, much more than it's two predecessors. But it's also larger.

Sadly I don't know how to judge one of these before you buy. The specs will tell you nothing regarding how they actually perform.

Good luck!

 

[winerocks69]

I conducted a lot of research before settling on and buying my U-Line. Excellent quality. Have had it working reliably for about 10 years now...

 

[jamesngalveston]

buy a decent old frig if you have room. remove racks, add at temp control.
make your own shelves.
storage for 70 to 90 wines..depends on the bottles and shelving.