As one develops their interest in wine and gets one step closer to becoming a wine connoisseur they’ll need to start storing their growing collection of wine for those special occasions to open them up.
This means a wine collection needs to be stored properly so they don’t deteriorate in taste, and in such cases, there are three options to store your wine: in a refrigerator, a wine cooler or a cellar. A cellar would be the most ideal but it’s both expensive and requires a lot more effort to make happen.
As a result, the next best option for most people is to either use their refrigerator or purchase a wine cooler. We’ll evaluate both of these options to help illustrate why a wine cooler is the way to go vs. a refrigerator.
Refrigerators are bad at maintaining temperature and high humidity
Nearly everyone has a home refrigerator and as a result, it’s tempting to use these when storing wine for the future along with your other food items. However, the main issue with a refrigerator is due to this versatility.
Refrigerators are notorious for not maintaining a constant temperature, especially due to the fact that it’s opened for use many times and this keeps the temperature inside fluctuating. This isn’t good for wine as a constant temperature between 45 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit is key for graceful aging. Moreover, high humidity also helps in ensuring the wine doesn’t oxidize, and refrigerators are known to maintain low levels of humidity.
All of this, however, is preventable with a wine cooler.
Wine coolers are designed to maintain constant temperatures and a high level of humidity. Many wine coolers are built with different cooling zones so you can keep red and white wines in their separate but optimal temperature ranges.
Food odours from items in your refrigerator can alter the taste of your wine
Contamination of wine due to food odours is another issue when wine is stored in a refrigerator. Due to the low humidity and sub-optimal temperature in a refrigerator, the wine’s cork can shrink letting in outside air. This not only will speed up the oxidation of the wine but will give the wine subtle hints of the other food items in your fridge.
With a wine cooler, the optimal temperature and humidity prevent outside air entering your wine, and additionally since it’s just other wine bottles that are also sealed with corks, you won’t be finding odd flavour profiles in your wine next time you open it up.
Vibration is not good for wine
The final issue with a refrigerator that may convince you to invest in a wine cooler is vibration.
As a refrigerator is opened and closed many times during the day this invariably will cause the wine to vibrate. Moreover, as it operates on a compressor there will always be micro-vibrations happening in the refrigerator. Both of these events mean the natural aging process is disrupted in the wine and can cause it to age and degrade a lot faster.
With a wine cooler, those that are powered by compressors come with extra vibration absorption features to prevent the wine from feeling any tremors. Additionally, there are also coolers based on thermoelectricity instead of a compressor and do not vibrate at all.
In addition to all this, wine coolers are also purpose-built for wine. With well-designed storage so that you can store many bottles, a much more portable design, and many other features, it’s the best solution so that your wine is well taken care of.
If you’re serious about your wine, then it’s definitely worth the investment over using your refrigerator.