Anyone who knows even the slightest bit about wines has heard of wine cellars. When wines are stored for any long period of time, in order to maintain their quality, they must be kept in an environment that’s somewhat dark with a humidity of between 50% and 70% and a temperature of 55-56 degrees. It’s also important that the wines are disturbed as little as possible.

While the huge cost of building and maintaining a wine cellar is beyond the reach of most, thankfully an electric wine cooler provides the same benefits in a smaller and far less expensive package.

Unless you’re well-versed in wines, you might wonder why you’d need a wine refrigerator instead of just storing your wines on the back shelf behind the milk.

First, a standard refrigerator is kept much too cold for wines. Even if you increased the temperature to accommodate your best chardonneys, your milk would suffer, and every time you open the door, the temperature would fluctuate too much for the health of your wines. At the same time, standard home refrigerators aren’t designed to hold wine bottles in the position that’s required for extended storage – neck angled slightly down. This keeps the cork from drying out and helps keep sediment on the cork.

Finally, refrigerators are designed to cool quickly and pull much of the humidity out of the air. Neither of these things is good for wines.

A wine cooler is designed to provide the optimal environment for long-term storage of wines, duplicating the environment of underground wine cellars. Most not only gently maintain the proper temperature, but they also maintain the humidity level required for proper storage. They are also designed to minimize vibrations that occur in regular refrigerators. These vibrations would disturb the sedimentation process that keeps wines clear.

Most smaller wine coolers use thermoelectric cooling which provide cooling without the noise and vibration of compressors. The larger wine coolers that are compressor-cooled are build to dampen the vibrations caused by the compressor so that the wine stored inside is not affected.

From small counter top units to large built-in models, today’s wine coolers can fit any home, any budget, and any need.

If you are only an occasional wine drinker but still want to properly store your wines, there are small counter top units that will store 6 to 12 bottles of wine. Some of these units are designed to mount under cabinets as well. They take up little space (some less than a microwave), yet provide the same environmental benefits as the larger models.

On the other hand, if you’re a wine lover who has need for more storage, the larger models are available in free standing models or built-in models to be installed under your counter top. These built-in models are designed to have zero-clearance like a dishwasher and all of the venting is done at the bottom front of the unit. Obviously if you’re looking at a built-in unit, you will want to look at all of your options to make sure the unit matches the rest of your decor as well as being the right size for your needs as well as for the space you have for it.

If you’re a serious wine aficionado, there are even larger electric wine cooler models that are as large as a standard refrigerator or even as big as a commercial freezer. Even the largest unit costs far less than building out a cellar, so there is a wine cooler for all needs.