Buying the Best Wine Refrigerator for Your Collection

If you are wine enthusiast with a growing collection, proper refrigeration is a must, especially if you plan on aging some of the bottles that have been collected. Here are 4 tips to make certain that the wine refrigerator you purchase stays around as long as the bottles in your collection:

• Take note of types of wine you plan to collect – The majority of wine bottles are “Bordeaux-sized”, with bottles of champagne and burgundy being slightly wider across the body. A collection made up of these wider bottles will require a refrigerator with more capacity than one used for standard-sized bottles.   
• Buy more capacity than you need now – If you plan on continuing to collect wine, estimate the capacity you need now and buy a refrigerator that is about twice the size of your current collection.
• Temperature controls – If you plan on aging wines in your collection, go with the higher precision of digital controls to ensure that the refrigerator’s temperature doesn’t stray from the optimal storage level of 55 degrees.
• Opting for dual temperature zones – If you plan on using your refrigerator for storage only you won’t need separate temperature zones. On the other hand, if you plan on serving directly from your wine refrigerator, you’ll want to be able to set a storage temperature as well as a serving temperature, which should be in the range of 45 to 50 degrees for white wine.   

The foundation of building a superior collection of wine is proper storage. By following these tips, you can make certain that your growing collection can be accommodated and that when you open that $100 bottle you've been aging, you get exactly the taste that you planned for.