Wine Refrigerators

 

The Best Wine Refrigerators

You know you’re a wine lover in need of a wine cooler when you start struggling to fit groceries in between the stacked bottles in your refrigerator. It might also be time to get a wine fridge if you’re starting to collect more serious vintages, and don’t have access to a cool, dry cellar for safe, long-term storage. Or maybe you just want your houseguests to think your wine’s nicer than it really is. After all, jokes Katie O’Byrne, the director of recruiting at Kitchen Culture and former sommelier at Otium in downtown Los Angeles, “Nothing says ‘I’m a grown-ass, fancy wino’ like a proper wine fridge.”

The problem with buying a proper wine fridge is that they aren’t cheap, and when you look at them online, they all kind of look the same. But when you’re spending this much money on a new home appliance, you want to be sure it actually works (especially if you’re using it to store rare and expensive things). So to help you find the perfect wine fridge for the way you drink, we talked to sommeliers, winemakers, restaurateurs, and even one refrigeration expert turned wine importer about the wine coolers and fridges they trust with their own one-of-a-kind bottles.

Best overall wine refrigerator

Wine Enthusiast 40 Bottle Dual Zone Wine Refrigerator

$900

$1,000 now 10% off

Even though he has a lot of bottles of wine in his collection, Roman Roth, a winemaker and partner at Wölffer Estate Vineyard on Long Island, has found that he only needs a small wine cooler, since the bulk of the bottles can be stored in his dark, temperature-controlled basement. “I like the small, dual-zone coolers like the 32 Bottle Dual Zone Refrigerator from Wine Enthusiast,” he says, noting that a glass door is fine for small fridges, which are mostly used for short-term storage. However, Roth notes that “if people prefer to use the large wine refrigerators, I always recommend they use one with a solid door, not a glass door where light can get to the wine” and possibly damage it during long-term storage. Brittany Villafañe, the head sommelier at DB Bistro Moderne also recommends this cooler from Wine Enthusiast. She told us she’s a general fan of the brand, and that she likes how this specific model offers dual temperature zones “so that you can safely store your whites along with your reds at optimum temperature.”