How do you store your wine [+ Fridge/Cabinet recommendations]

www.costco.com.au

Euro Wine Cooler 450L E430WSCS1 | Costco Australia

Glass door Double-glazed Stainless Steel trim & handle Temp Computerised control Zones 5-12 & 12-22 C Light Blue LED Intuitive Humidity control Controls Quiet cooling Capacity 157-164 bottles Shelves 14 wooden Cooling No frost Lock With key Description This Euro wine cooler has a double-glazed...
www.costco.com.au www.costco.com.au

Costco have one currently which is a decent price
 
Alex Arch said:
home.liebherr.com

WKt 6451 GrandCru

home.liebherr.com home.liebherr.com

Anyone got any thoughts or experiences with this big boy?
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I used to have one when I lived in an apartment. Very happy with it. Only got rid of it because I moved and had built a proper cellar.

Do you have any specific questions/concerns?

I was really happy with mine. It's whisper quiet, barely uses any electricity and is about as big as you can get. Obviously not the most anaesthetically pleasing fridge, but not too ugly either. Realistically, you're not going to get the stated number of bottles in. That number assumes all standard sized Bordeaux bottles.

The only downside (and really would apply to any fridge of this style) is accessibility. When almost full and you want that bottle that happens to be towards the bottom on the back, you need to pull out a lot of bottles to get to it. So pack is strategically and use something like www.cellartracker.com to keep note of which shelf your bottles are on.

They seem to retain their value too. When I no longer needed mine, I managed to sell it for about 65% of what I paid for it.
 
Daver6 said:
I used to have one when I lived in an apartment. Very happy with it. Only got rid of it because I moved and had built a proper cellar.

Do you have any specific questions/concerns?

I was really happy with mine. It's whisper quiet, barely uses any electricity and is about as big as you can get. Obviously not the most anaesthetically pleasing fridge, but not too ugly either. Realistically, you're not going to get the stated number of bottles in. That number assumes all standard sized Bordeaux bottles.

The only downside (and really would apply to any fridge of this style) is accessibility. When almost full and you want that bottle that happens to be towards the bottom on the back, you need to pull out a lot of bottles to get to it. So pack is strategically and use something like www.cellartracker.com to keep note of which shelf your bottles are on.

They seem to retain their value too. When I no longer needed mine, I managed to sell it for about 65% of what I paid for it.
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Hey thank you for the thorough write up. I didn't have any concerns was just hoping to get some positive feed back. Seems to hit the right price size ratio and given it's not going to be on display the athestics aren't as important. I'll let you know how I get on. The hardest task was clearing it with the Mrs
 
Lawrage said:
For those of you who do store it at home not in a wine fridge, how do you keep it cool, just insulation or do you actually run a dedicated AC in there
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Ideally you would have a cellar refridgeration system, as AC only cools to 16 and unless you are only drinking red it's not really cool enough to cellar wine long term (but still better than nothing).
I personally keep my cellar at 12 as I'm not worried if it takes a bit longer to reach it's peak.
Once you have a 500 to 1000 bottles I found that was the break even on moving out of wine storage companies due to cost $3 per bottle per year).
Obviously insulation is good and a position where temperature fluctuation are less.
Wine fridges are good if you have less bottles, but a 234 bottle Vintec will set you back 7 to 9 k hence why a cellar system looks good if you have the space.
In the end it will come down to dollars.
 
My collection of about 600 bottles (mostly McLaren Vale) Shiraz with 10 years cellaring potential (I buy nothing else) is stored in a disused car maintenance pit in my garage. It is about 2M deep x 1M wide x 6M long with two carefully spaced reo' mesh sheets on one wall which the bottle just fit into and it's covered with 100mm thick timber and insulation. I keep 2 dozen in the pantry for immediate consumption and replace as consumed. This method allows me to keep wine for 5-10 years and be only drinking perfectly aged Shiraz - it's so worthwhile and rewarding.
 
Lawrage said:
I ended up getting this one, had it for a few years now and no issues. Its really big and barely fits through an internal door in the house and not the best color but I love it.

Plenty of space inside and very quiet.
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You are not wrong. I got one delivered on Saturday and there was about 1mm of clearance getting it inside the room. Your other observations are correct. It is massive and an interesting colour.
 
Alex Arch said:
You are not wrong. I got one delivered on Saturday and there was about 1mm of clearance getting it inside the room. Your other observations are correct. It is massive and an interesting colour.
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You can get it wrapped to make the outside black or match the room although ours is now in the lounge and strangely goes quite well with the wood dining table etc...
 
People I know were putting an extension on their house. Decided to dig a big hole in the ground during construction and voila! One big underground cellar.
 
Aldi have a "34 Bottle" wine cabinet coming up in their 'special buys' next Saturday for $280.

ALDI Special Buys™ new range every Wednesday and Saturday

We know you've heard about them. ALDI’s Special Buys can include anything from electronics, gardening to clothing & furniture. Get a sneak peek of what's coming today.
www.aldi.com.au www.aldi.com.au

Product Description​

  • 34 x standard 750ml bottle capacity
  • Double-glazed tinted glass door
  • 6 x timber shelves
  • 1 x chrome rack
  • 5°C-18°C temperature range
  • LED touch control panel
  • Model: HBRWC34B
  • Dimensions: 842mm(H) x 480mm(W) x 440mm(D)
  • Weight: 30kgˇ
  • Digital touch controls
  • Adjustable feet
  • Storage basket
  • 93L capacity
  • Internal LED lighting
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I've converted a spare bedroom into a wine room and so far it's working quite well. It's a double brick room with one external facing wall. I've put in a canvas awning on the external wall to keep sun off of the window and then taped some foil insulation over the glass itself. On the inside the roller blind is then left down. Even on the hottest days there is very little radiant heat from the window.

I've sealed around the door and used a draught stopper to stop cool air escaping.

Finally I had a small split system (2.5kw) installed with a thermostat and a dry contact. The system turns on once the room hits about 18 degrees and then off again once cooled down. The dry contact simply tuns the system completely on or off at the signal from the thermostat so no sitting on standby and it only turns on at the intended setting - ie full cooling.

I have a wifi thermometer/hygrometer in the room which I can access data from remotely. So far humidity seems ok at 58% on average although this doesn't concern me too much with the vast majority of my bottles under screwcap anyway. I have set an alert in the app that notifies me if the room temp goes above 20 degrees, so far no alerts.

Temp has been pretty steady with daily variances between 15-17.5 degrees, the variances in the wine itself would be even less obviously. Energy usage has been pretty good and I estimate that it will add $40 per quarter to the bills although once into winter the unit wont operate much at all. We are planning on adding solar this year anyway so wont be an issue.

Temperature is obviously not in the perfect cellaring range however I really wanted to stop the temperature from going above that 20 degrees and potentially even to high 20s which often happens through summer. So far so good. I figure my setup will just age the wine more quickly than if it was in the ideal range and that's fine as long as I plan for it.

Without scope for a cellar and with 500 or so bottles it was going to be difficult space-wise and costly to go down the wine fridge route so while this is a compromise, so far looks to be working well and the remote monitoring puts me at ease.

Cost wise the split system was $1400 supply and install and the wifi thermometer was $40.

For a dedicated wine cooling split system it would have cost at least $10k from what I understand.
 
Daver6 said:
Would you mind sharing details on the make/model and cost of this?
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Of course, it is a "Gecheer Wifi Smart Temp Humidity Sensor" that I picked up on Amazon for $39. I was concerned that given the price it might not be that accurate but the temp matches the other thermometer in the room so all good.

There is a trick to getting it to send remote info however. The app needs to be on the same wifi network as the thermometer in order for it to receive the temp/humidity data so when I left the house the temp would not update. Solution was to use my old phone to also have the app installed and leave that connected at home, that sends info up to the cloud which I then access through the same app on my new phone.
 
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samh004 said:
Wine racks have been bolted to the walls here, beverage centre has turned up for mixers and now just waiting for the wine fridge the week after next... at which point I'll consider posting a photo :p
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IMG_0974.jpeg
Fridge arrived early.
Daver6 said:
Would you mind sharing details on the make/model and cost of this?
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I shouldn't need to go this route with my new ducted system, but am considering personally one of the Eve Internet-of-Things devices. The Eve Room will record temperature, humidity and air quality, while the new Eve Weather – which is designed for outside use primarily – is built on newer smart home technology (thread) for improved support in the future. The advantage to one of these devices over a cheaper system bought on Amazon is not only can you access your data anywhere, you can set up automations, for example the AC to turn on if it gets too hot or a humidifier/dehumidifier depending on what the case may be.

Not cheap though.
 

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