Whether your an passionate wine collector or just like to have a few bottles available for a party, a compact wine refrigerator is an ideal way to store your wine. The capacity of a wine refrigerator can range from six bottles up to 800 bottles; a compact wine refrigerator can fit under a cabinet or stand against a wall. Dual zone wine refrigerators are readily available and these can store different styles of wines at different temperatures for long-term aging or drinking.

For the many people who do not have the space to build a mini wine cellar, a compact wine refrigerator can provide an ideal solution. A compact wine refrigerator will maintain wines at the ideal wine temperature and even those wines that are best served at room temperature should be stored in a cool environment while they develop complexity.

One of the advantages of a dual zone compact wine refrigerator lies is its ability to store different types of wines at different temperatures within the same wine cooler unit. The recommended storage temperature for white wines is between 46 and 54 degrees Farenheit and for red wines it is 54 to 64 degrees Farenheit. Besides providing temperature control, a compact wine refrigerator will maintain the correct humidity for storing wine.

The Right Way To Store Wine

Most wine lovers understand that they must treat their wines with respect and avoid vibration to the bottles to protect their wine. Look for a good quality wine refrigerator that will be vibration free and one that may use internal LED lighting to further protect the wine.

Even a low wattage bulb can increase the temperature in a space like a compact wine refrigerator. Because, ideally, wines should be stored in darkness, the use of LED lights that do not emit any appreciable heat will assist in creating a cooler and darker environment. Regardless of the type of lights you have, you should only open the wine refrigerator when necessary.

Most compact wine refrigerators have metal or glass racks and will store the bottles at a slight angle to ensure the corks stay moist by remaining in contact with the wine at all times. Depending on the space available for a wine refrigerator – from compact under-counter units that can hold up to a dozen bottles to larger furniture-style units with a capacity to store many hundreds of bottles – a wine refrigerator can protect your wine collection from the temperature, humidity and vibration hazards that can alter taste, hasten aging and reduce the appeal of your wine.

At his wine blog – ChrisOnWine – Chris Miley occasionally mentions wine refrigerators amongst many other wine topics.

The best way to store your valuable wine collection so it ages properly is to build a home wine cellar. Your cellar should be designed to correctly store wine as it ages, ensuring that the wine develops complexity and depth and does not spoil.

Building a home wine cellar from scratch may seem like a daunting process, but the first step that proverbially applies to climbing mountains applies to wine cellars, too. It usually starts with collecting the first bottle and eventually finding that your collection has grown to a point that you cannot store it at home without a cellar.

A well-built home wine cellar can cost you many thousands of dollars but so can a large refrigerated wine cabinet so that often a custom built wine cellar at home can be the most economical and cost effective way of storing your wine collection.

Before you start building your home wine cellar consider the following.

Cellar temperature should be a chief consideration followed by the amount of natural light. Make sure the room is well insulated – extruded polystyrene insulation is ideal. If you live in a mild climate you may be able to create a passive cellar that doesn’t require any cooling system.

A wine cellar will usually have thick walls. Two-by-six construction allows for better insulation, allowing the cellar to remain at a constant temperature. In an active wine cellar, major factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a cooling system.

Temperature swings can quickly destroy your wine collection. Small temperature fluctuations from summer to winter will not damage the wine but those same fluctuations on a daily or weekly basis will cause your wine to age prematurely. Temperature should stay between 45 and 60 degrees F, and exposure to direct sunlight should be avoided. It is possible to build a wine closet or a wine cupboard at home that will have the required humidity level of between 50% and 80% that is ideal for all types of wines.

When storing wine all vibration should be avoided; it agitates the bottles and speeds up the chemical reactions taking place inside the bottle – and not in a desirable way.

Vibration is a major issue during the transportation and is the reason most shippers recommend allowing your wine to rest after extended travel. This is important, too, when you buy wine at a cellar door or even from your local wine retailer. Never take it home and immediately pull the cork out without allowing it to return to a rested state. In fact, all wine should be immediately placed in your cellar.

Note that it is not just your wine which is valuable; the cellar itself will improve the value of your home. So the larger and better-constructed your cellar, the more the value of your house will increase.

A wine cellar generally requires a lower temperature than the surrounding living areas and therefore must be treated differently in relation to those areas. Do not attempt to cool a wine cellar by installing a domestic air conditioning unit if your wine cellar requires cooling. Domestic air conditioning removes the humidity from the air and will quickly destroy your wine collection by drying out the corks. There are many brands of wine cellar cooling units available to cool any size wine cellar. Your wine cellar is a personal statement, and will become one of the most important areas in your home. This is a space for you to indulge your passion for wine collecting and where you will display your latest acquisitions to family and fellow wine-loving friends. Click here to discover how to build a home wine cellar and, if you have the space, you could try incorporating a bar or a wine tasting area.