S/O Does anyone here own a wine refrigerator?

[TwinFoxes]

This is a spin off of the compactor thread, OP was thinking of taking out her compactor and getting a wine refrigerator. Does anyone own one? Our new house has room for one,, but they are surprisingly expensive once you get past the ones that look like dorm room refrigerators. Are they worth the money? Is there one you'd recommend, or are there features we should look for? This is an "if there's money left over in the budget" item for us.

[dcmom2b3]

Yeah, we have one. It's a GE Profile, probably 8 years old, haven't had any problems. But it's in a part of the house that we don't use that much, so it doesn't get used that much. It's turned off right now. It's nice to have back-up fridge space for Thanksgiving, big sheet cakes, etc., but would be even more helpful now if it were in the kitchen!

[michellerw]

We did. A Cuisinart. It was a wedding gift. Don't. Just don't. It lasted less than six months and all of the online reviews indicate that's pretty much par for the course.

[megv]

The house we moved into had a wine refigerator. It is really really nice. It is a Marvel, which is the same company that makes scientific fridges for labs. It works very well - even has different zones of coolness for red/white wine. We love it, and actually drink more wine now because we have it...uh-oh!!! I think the brand is a bit priecy though...

[fauve01]

This is a spin off of the compactor thread, OP was thinking of taking out her compactor and getting a wine refrigerator. Does anyone own one? Our new house has room for one,, but they are surprisingly expensive once you get past the ones that look like dorm room refrigerators. Are they worth the money? Is there one you'd recommend, or are there features we should look for? This is an "if there's money left over in the budget" item for us.

we replaced our trash compactor with a wine fridge last year and have been very happy. we never used the trash compactor but use wine fridge every day. we found it on sale when we were shopping to replace our oven. i told DH to just get the wine fridge for himself for his birthday while he was there arranging stuff for the oven delivery (we had been talking about switching for a while). Ours is an Avanti; it was a floor model and it was chaper than the salesperson was thinking it would be. we didn't look for special features, we just go the one that fit the hole the trash compactor left--there weren't many options at the store we went to. We were told most wine fridges are wider than trash compactors. DH did NO research, just tusted the salesperson who said "wow this is a good model, i'm surprised it's only this much." i think it was around $450? not sure.

this is the one we have:
http://www.avantiproducts.com/index.php?page=products&id=269

the only problem i have is it sticks out a little farther than i like --it's not flush to he cupboards (so the door can open)-- and sometimes when i am stading in front of it cooking/preparing food i press off the power button and accidentally turn it off. it beeps when it turns off, so i always hear it and turn it back on.

i could post a pic if you want to see.

hth,
Anne

[TwinFoxes]

i could post a pic if you want to see.

hth,
Anne

Wow, it helps a lot, and I'd love to see a pic.

It seems frivolous, but we have room for one, and we like wine. We could get rid of our wine rack which doesn't match our furniture any more.

[fauve01]

Wow, it helps a lot, and I'd love to see a pic.

It seems frivolous, but we have room for one, and we like wine. We could get rid of our wine rack which doesn't match our furniture any more.

ha, it doesn't seem frivolous to me, lol. i also enjoy that DH's wine bottles aren't taking up space inmy big refigerator!

another thing--it just plugs in and pushes into place. it would be (somewhat) easy to get to the back fo repairs, replacement, etc.

here are pics--try to ignore the nightmare that is my cluttered kitchen! i hope the images are big enough for you to see (i didn't think i shoud post the giant files and i don't know how to resize.)

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine027.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine027.jpg)

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine028.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine028.jpg)

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine029.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine029.jpg)

the last one sort of shows how it sticks out a little. i've gotten used to it and don't turn it off accidentally anymore.
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine030.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine030.jpg)

hth,
anne

[jenfromnj]

we replaced our trash compactor with a wine fridge last year and have been very happy. we never used the trash compactor but use wine fridge every day.




Same for us--when we were renovating our kitchen, we knew we wanted something more useful to fill that spot. Ours is a GE Profile, as well. It's definitely come in handy--especially since our wine racks were starting to get really crowded when we went a little overboard shipping home wine on our last pre-baby trip to Napa/Sonoma, ha ha.

[dhano923]

We are in the market for one. We like wine, and live in CA, so we do weekend trips to wine country (central coast -- although it's been a while since our last trip). We plan to put ours in our formal dining room, not in the kitchen, but when we do our kitchen remodel in a few months, we hope to integrate it into the kitchen redesign. We are going to get one that can be used free standind or built in, so we'll be spending $400-500 depending on which one we go with. We'd like to store wines for long term, so we want to make sure the fridge is reliable to prevent spoilage.

[luvmypeanut]

I have a Sub-zero under the island in our house and a huge Eurocave (looks like furniture) that holds about 200 bottles in our apartment. We use them all the time and they're definitely worth the money for us.

[TwinFoxes]

ha, it doesn't seem frivolous to me, lol. i also enjoy that DH's wine bottles aren't taking up space inmy big refigerator!

another thing--it just plugs in and pushes into place. it would be (somewhat) easy to get to the back fo repairs, replacement, etc.

here are pics--try to ignore the nightmare that is my cluttered kitchen! i hope the images are big enough for you to see (i didn't think i shoud post the giant files and i don't know how to resize.)

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine027.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine027.jpg)

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine028.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine028.jpg)

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine029.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine029.jpg)

the last one sort of shows how it sticks out a little. i've gotten used to it and don't turn it off accidentally anymore.
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/th_wine030.jpg (http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/fauve01/wine%20fridge/?action=view&current=wine030.jpg)

hth,
anne

That's about the size I had in mind. The Eurocave ones are nice, but so huge! I'm glad to hear that most folks like theirs. Time to do some research! :)

BTW, if that's cluttered, I'm in big trouble! Your kitchen is so nice and bright! It's lovely.

[ilfaith]

We have two wine fridges. When we redid our kitchen three years ago we put in a Viking under-counter wine fridge.

We also kept our Kenmore Elite, which we bought when we moved into our house. It now lives in DH's home office. Both fridges seem to work well...although my 3-year-old has a tendency to adjust the temperature on the Kenmore from "red" to "white" (as this is done with a button on the outside of the fridge...the Viking has an internal thermostat and a lock)

Shortly before getting pregnant with DS3 we went on a trip to Napa, brought back a bunch of bottles and joined a wine club that shipped us two bottles a month. Then for nine months I couldn't drink, so the bottles just accumulated. We really should start drinking more wine. I guess 9:15 in the morning may be a bit early to start.