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Small (12-25 bottle) wine fridge recommendation

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William Schimmel

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Small (12-25 bottle) wine fridge recommendation

by William Schimmel » Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:12 pm

Hello,

I am looking to purchase a small wine fridge (under counter style) to supplement my full cellar (~400 bottles) for every day wine drinking. Picking one is not so difficult, but I am curious if there are any out there that support non-standard (i.e., Bordeaux style) bottles. If there are two bottles of Pinot and 1 of sparkling/champagne I want to store, will I need to shove them in or bump out another bottle thereby making an 18 bottle fridge fit 15?

Any thoughts are appreciated as well as general feelings on the smaller, undercounter options.

Thanks, William Schimmel
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Re: Small (12-25 bottle) wine fridge recommendation

by Jenise » Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:35 am

William, good luck in your quest. I don't know a lot about these things, but I owned one once that I would caution anyone against buying one like. Don't recall the brand, but I bought it at Costco maybe ten years ago--it was a floor to counter-height model but narrow and sized perfectly to fit in the hole created by removing a trash compactor or, as in my case, an old ice machine that came with the house. I replaced it entirely a few years later when we remodeled our kitchen. Anyway, the problem was, that instead of pull-out rack 'drawers' like the one I have now, it had stationery right-to-left metal rods that undulated in shape so that bottles fit in the recesses. Only problem was, they were spaced to hold the bottoms and necks of bottles, and the space between them was fairly wide without any interim support, and though a pinot noir bottle fit in there just fine you had to get it JUST so which, being so bottom heavy, it's not very well balanced to do, and any bottle in the upper reaches that got knocked slightly out of alignment would fall on the bottles below which in turn...you get the picture.
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Sam Platt

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Re: Small (12-25 bottle) wine fridge recommendation

by Sam Platt » Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:55 am

Hi William,

I have a Haier 36 bottle unit. It has bottom shelving designed for sparkling wine bottles. The other four shelf levels have adjustable spacing capability. I probably have 40+ bottles jammed into the thing. I've been very happy with it.
Sam

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William Schimmel

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Re: Small (12-25 bottle) wine fridge recommendation

by William Schimmel » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:37 am

Thanks Sam. I just looked at those and unfortunately the space I have available won't fit any of their models.

Anyone have any thoughts on Danby? I am focusing on this one right now as I know it will fit in the space I have and appears to have some flexibility for bottles on it's bottom two shelves.

http://www.winecoolerdirect.com/danby-17-bottle-wine-refrigerator-dwc172bl/DWC172BL.html?cgid=Wine_Refrigerators-6_27_Bottle_Wine_Refrigerators
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Re: Small (12-25 bottle) wine fridge recommendation

by wnissen » Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:06 pm

If it were me I'd head to Costco and see what they have. I've heard that these little coolers are especially unreliable, and I would want the protections of Costco's warranty.

I wish I could share some experience, but I've found that keeping the bottle in the cellar and a couple frozen sleeves on hand lets me bring even sparkling wine down to temperature within about fifteen minutes. Where the small cooler comes in handy is when you want to make it a point to drink some bottles, but I tend to solve that problem by keeping them at the top of my regular cellar.
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