When To Get a Wine Refrigerator

You can store wines for a few weeks with no problem, but if you are keeping them longer and the wines are valuable, you may want a wine refrigerator.



Why get a wine refrigerator? Because wine is supposed to be stored at much cooler temperatures than most of us live in. Wine should be stored at 55 degrees as a general rule. Different wines do best at slightly different temperatures, but just for a rough rule, red wines can kept warmer than 55 degree, while white wines should be kept right at 55 degrees. To be specific red wines and full-bodied wines taste best when stored at 59 to 66 degrees. White, rose and blush vintages taste best if they are served colder, at about 50 degrees, but you can store them at the standard 55 degrees.

Another reason to get a wine refrigerator is temperature consistency. It is not good for wine in storage to have any temperature changes, even if its just a few degrees. This activates yeasts and other compounds in the wine and will give you a less than optimal taste. So if you were thinking about putting your wine in a cool spot in the house, or just outside of the house (breezeway, basement, shed, etc), think again -- those places actually have more temperature swings than your kitchen counter. Frequently, those storage areas also have smells you would not want to taste in your wine, and as the cork can take in smells and alter the taste of the wine, the typical storage areas of out of bounds.

Keeping wine in your regular refrigerator is not ideal, either. Its too cold in there.

While all this may sounds like you have no choice about getting a wine refrigerator, you still can skip the purchase. If you are only going to be "storing" your wine for 1-2 weeks, it is OK to just keep it out in your regular household air... so long as you follow some loose rules. Like keep your wine out of direct sunlight, do not put it in a spot that has big temperature changes (like next to the stove), and do not put it in a place where it will be bumped (so no wine racks that stick out into traffic paths where people might bumb into them, OK?). If you've got those basics down, most wine will be prefectly fine for a week or two.

Its when you get past "most wine" that you may want a wine refrigerator. Bottles worth more than $40 may well deserve at least a small, six bottle wine refrigerator that will only cost you $100 anyway. And if you are starting to get into the rarer, truly fine wines that run $100 or more a bottle, then a wine refrigerator is required. Another consideration would be if you finally got yourself on the tour of the French countryside, and you are now the proud owner of a truly precious case of 1929 Bordeaux. Then you will want a wine refrigator that fits at least twelve bottles, and at that point you might as well get one with room for eighteen or 24, because you are well and truly hooked.