Category Archives: Wine Cooling

The 5 Benefits of Wine Fridges and the 5 Best Brands to Choose From

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Wine fridges are a wine collector’s best friend when it comes to an affordable and efficient wine storage solution. It’s easier to organize wine bottles using wine fridges. With the many styles and sizes to choose from, wine fridges can offer the wine storage abilities you are looking for.

Wine fridges are also known as wine cabinets. Unlike regular refrigerators, wine fridges are equipped with the right equipment and climate conditions for proper wine aging.

So, why choose a wine fridge?

Here are the 5 benefits of wine fridges:

Wine Fridges are Functional

Wine fridges operate in a practical way, thanks to the simplicity of their construction; every part of the equipment serves its purpose.

Wine fridges can be space savers. They are available in various sizes and bottle capacities, to suit your storage needs.

Wine Fridge Selection

Wine Fridge Selection

Storage capacity is maximized with wine fridges. Most models can store different sizes of wine bottles, so you will not be limited to just one bottle size in your collection.

Wine fridges can also be incorporated into the cabinetry design of your home. They are easy to mix and match, and blend well with various cabinetry materials.

Wine Fridges are Efficient

Efficiency is one of the assets of wine fridges. Compared to regular refrigerators, wine fridges are specifically designed to ensure the optimum aging of wines.

Wine fridges are equipped with cooling systems that maintain the ideal wine storage environment. Temperature and humidity are the two critical factors that most affect wine aging. With the help of cooling systems, temperature and humidity levels are constantly maintained.

Single or Dual Temperature Option - Vinopro Wine Fridges

Single or Dual Temperature Option – Vinopro Wine Fridges

Wine fridges with dual temperature zones allow efficient wine cooling specifically for red wines and white wines. Red wines are stored within the temperature range of 16 to 20 degrees Celsius, while white wines are stored within the temperature range of 6 to 12 degrees Celsius.

Some wine fridges have alarm systems, which send signals when there is a significant deviation in the temperature or humidity levels. This gives you an assurance that your wines will always be in good condition.

Wine fridges are energy savers as well. Trusted brands of wine fridges are designed with an energy-saving mechanism that can help lessen the cost of electricity usage.

Wine Fridges are Stylish

Wine fridges come in various styles, sizes, and colors. There are wooden wine fridges, aluminum walled wine fridges, all glass door wine fridges, and different finishes to choose from (see examples below).

There are half size and full size options. Some brands of wine fridges are available in different depths, like the Wine KoolR’s single deep and double deep-format wine fridges.

Stylish Le Cache Wine Fridges

Stylish Le Cache Wine Fridges

For some brands, you can choose different shelving configurations and wine fridge frame and panel colors, like that of EuroCave wine fridges (see examples below).

Wine Fridges are Affordable

For wine collectors on a budget, buying a wine fridge is a great alternative for building your own custom wine cellar.

Vinopro BI-56 Wine Fridges

Spend as little as $749 (see Vinopro BI-56 Wine Fridge) to $5,000 for a wine fridge, depending on your wine storage capacity needs and design preferences.

Wine Fridges are Durable

Wine fridges are ideal for long-term wine storage, as long as you choose a high quality brand. Top-of-the-line materials and technology are now being used to produce impressively functional and sturdy wine fridges.

Vancouver Custom Wine Cellar Renovation Project

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Custom Residential Wine Cellar Renovation in Vancouver (a Processed Video Transcription)

Vancouver Residential Renovation with Walnut Racking

Vancouver Beach Avenue

Beach Avenue, Vancouver

Hi. I’m Adrienne from Blue Grouse Wine Cellars. I’d like to tell you about our wine cellar project that we completed recently in the Vancouver downtown area on Beach Avenue, and here’s the picture of the area.

You will see how beautiful it is down there. We’re working in a condominium building.

Wood Racking Wine Cellar Before

The Old Wine Storage Cabinet of the Client

The client that we worked with had their existing wine cellar or wine cabinet shown in this picture here. It was built with three separate temperature-controlled wine cabinet, one behind each this door.

We’re not really quite sure why it was designed that way, because wine cooling system could definitely handle the space. In any case, they had this for a number of years, about 20 years. And we’re running to update its look, and install properly working wine cooling equipment.

They also wanted to expand the size to accommodate their ever growing collection. So we started by doing designs for them.

Custom Wine Cellar Drawing overall viewWe went through a few revisions, and eventually ended up here with this design. These were the drawings that we created so they could see in 3D exactly what they would be getting, and how it would fit the size.

You can see that there wasn’t a whole lot difference than what they started with, but the depth was greatly increased. There was some storage area behind this cellar that we stole space from that used to be a bathroom before their first home wine cellar. So they had easy water connection for the wine cooling system.

The 3D Drawings

Custom Wine Cellar Drawing elevationsLooking through the drawings here. This is the plan view, the top view, so you can see exactly all the measurements, and the various elevations, A, B, and C. Elevation A is the back wall. Behind this box of this cabinet is where the cooling unit is housed.

You can see in this further stripped down view what the cooling unit looks like. It kind of a large metal box with the wall ducting coming up the top and connect to the fitting up here where the cold air blows out into the cellar.

This grill here is where the warm air comes out to the unit. The return air is at the toe kick. It’s a pretty sophisticated design. They didn’t have to have grills. There’s a gap in the toekick at the bottom here where it opens so the air can feed back up to the cooling unit.

We got a shaker style door. They were looking for a pretty clean contemporary design, so you don’t see any fancy moldings or anything here.

The wine racking has some display shelves. These aren’t fold up because as you can see in this view, that the ducting is running up behind. So that hiding the ducting is what giving them some display space for the bottles that they wanted to stand up.

Custom Wine Cellar Features

Lighting

They got LED lighting incorporated at the top to shine down the display feature. They also have LED lighting over top of the display row for the individual bottle racking on either side of the cabinet.

Racking Components

Custom Wine Cellar Drawing elevations B and CLooking to the next elevations B and C, are mirrors of each other because these are the two sidewalls. They have some diamond bin storage here.

This is for the bulk wine, so when our client has wines that are all the same, all those bottles can fit into the bins here. It maximizes the storage capacity.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to include too many of these if you are somebody who buys 1 to 2 bottles at a time, because you wouldn’t want to mix the bottles in here because getting bottles at the bottom can be quite tricky.

This is the display row running horizontally through the middle. This carries through the perimeter of the room. It has LED lighting over top of the bottles to highlight them.

Elevation D is the front row of the cellar, which was full frameless glass. Now this isn’t the most efficient way to build a Vancouver residential wine cellar, but it can be done and we took careful attention to make sure that the doors had really good seals around them, so we don’t have air escaping or warm air coming into the wine cellar. It’s 12 mm clear tempered glass. They got some pull handles here on the front, and some top and bottom hinges.

Wine Refrigeration System

The cooling unit in here is a really powerful cooling unit. It can actually handle spaces up to 2,000 cubic feet, which is obviously a lot larger than this wine cellar was. But with this full frameless glass wall and no R-value in the front, we do have to compensate for that.

The Completed Home Wine Cellar

View Through Glass Doors into Custom Wine Cellar

Vancouver Wine Cellar Installation by Blue Grouse

So the finished project looks like this. Just as you saw on the drawings, everything matches. That was what the racking is. The installers followed the drawings assembling this wood wine racking and finishing the custom wine cellar.

All the racking was made from walnut wood, and really high quality walnut wood without any knots. And then it had an oil finish applied to it to darken the wood and give it a richer look and feel.

The shelves up here are glass shelves that were installed on brackets. This is where the liquor bottles were displayed by the client. And they’ve got some of their featured bottles highlighted in the display row here under the LED lighting.

I’ll just show you a few more pictures. This picture here shows you the full fronts glass wall. You can see they got some nice pull handles, pretty minimal in their appearance. Brushed nickel to match their brushed nickel catch hardware for the door hinges.

Understanding What Wine Cellar Cooling Units Are

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A wine cellar refrigeration system is an integral part of a wine storage solution. It is responsible for providing the cool temperature and humidity to wines inside a wine storage room,so that they can age and develop properly. Without a good cooling system installed, a wine cellar will be rendered useless.

What is a Wine Cellar Cooling Unit?

A wine cellar cooling unit is similar to a regular air conditioning unit, but not quite the same. A wine cellar cooling system is specifically built to cater to the wine storage needs of wine cellars. Only a wine cellar cooling unit can provide the specific temperature and humidity levels that wines need to develop their aromas and flavors. At its core, a wine cellar refrigeration system is an air exchanger. It basically provides cool air to a wine cellar, while removing the warm air that rises to the top and sending it into an exhaust room.

 

Basic Elements of a Good Wine Cellar Refrigeration System

Wine cellar refrigeration systems in Vancouver, Canada come in various shapes, sizes and configurations. It can be really difficult to determine which brand is best fit for your wine storage room.To make it easier to choose the right wine cellar cooling system, here are the standard requirements of a quality wine cellar cooling unit:

1. A Good Wine Cellar Cooling Unit is Durable.

It is imperative that your wine cellar cooling unit in Vancouver, Canada, has a long lifespan. Generally, the longer the lifespan of a refrigeration system, the more expensive it is. Wine cellar cooling systems that are on the lower end of the market usually last around 1 to 4 years, but there are a few that are known to last longer when used under the ideal conditions. High quality wine cellar refrigeration units can last from 5 to 7 years, with some brands lasting even longer.

2. Choose Wine Cellar Cooling Units That Produce Minimal Noise

A wine cellar cooling unit is the most common source of noise in a wine storage room. The problem with noise is that, if it is excessive, it can cause vibrations in the wine racks and there by disturb the aging and development process of the wines. The amount of noise that a wine cellar cooling unit produces depends on its quality and on how it is configured. Some types of cooling units produce minimal noise, while others are very noisy.

3. Your Cellar Refrigeration Unit Should Be Efficient

The efficiency of a wine cellar refrigeration system is essential. How does the cooling unit perform the task at hand? There are cooling units that can cool a room to the ideal temperature, but cannot maintain it for very long. Some cooling units have trouble functioning should the outside temperature become too warm or too cold. There are also some refrigeration units that have a problem with temperature uniformity, producing cooler and warmer spots through the custom wine cellar.

Many times, the design and construction of the wine cellar play a large role in how well the wine cellar refrigeration system functions. If a wine cellar is not properly insulated, and if it isn’t completely air tight, a wine cellar cooling unit will fail to function effectively. Also, if you install a cooling unit that is too small for a large wine storage room, the unit will fail to do its job properly, and can even be damaged.

Types of Wine Cellar Cooling Systems in Vancouver, Canada

There are various types of wine cellar cooling units in Vancouver, Canada, but they can be categorized into two basic kinds.

1. Self-Contained Wine Cellar Cooling Systems

A self-contained wine cellar cooling unit has both the evaporator and condenser contained in one single housing. There are two subtypes of self-contained wine cellar cooling units and they are:

a. Ductless Self-Contained Wine Cellar Cooling Units

This is the easiest to install, because you simply mount the cooling unit through the wall of the home wine cellar. An HVAC professional is not needed for the installation of this unit. The major advantage of ductless self-contained wine cellar cooling systems is that they are very cost-effective. The common complaint for this kind of cooling system is that it produces a lot of noise in the wine storage room.