Claw Dee Puss
Posts: 213
Joined: 3/11/2014
From: Portugal (via England)
Status: offline
|
As Confucius said “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”
So I ask this question in all seriousness.
I've been looking, finally, into the idea of getting a "wine fridge" - not for service - purely for storage - and not particularly long term (maybe 5 to 10 years).
My wine collection is not a particularly expensive one - quite a lot of bottles (so my wife says - around 800), but rarely do I pay more than 70 euros for a bottle, and those are usually to drink fairly shortly (within a couple of years).
But I think I owe it to the wine to at least make an attempt to store it at least reasonably.
I recently rigged up an old "campervan" fridge (gas, 12V and 240V, 100% silent) with an external temperature control unit (monitoring probe goes inside the fridge) - this works fabulously - I've set it for 16°C and my wine, once decanted, sits in there for a few hours and comes out at the ideal temperature (I'm a red drinker) - a few extra bottles are ready to pop and pour, the Port decanter is in there too, and some chocolate!
Which has set me wondering why I can't store my wine in one or more "big" fridges, controlled in the same way by such external units to the temperature I choose.
I do realise the following...
A fridge provides no humidity control - but I think I ought to be able to manage that within reasonable bounds, or can I not?
A fridge will not, I'm pretty sure, be as "accurate" at maintaining an absolutely constant temperature through the space - but, as I said above, this isn't especially expensive wine, nor will I be keeping it for decades.
A fridge "off the shelf" isn't equipped with appropriate shelving, and quite possibly won't provide such an "optimum" use of space as a dedicated unit designed specifically for storing wine.
A fridge won't provide "heating" if so required during cold summer months - but I can heat the room in which they sit.
Fridges vibrate more than bespoke wine fridges - is this really important in my situation?
But the cost differences are significant, for example, here in Portugal...
Liebherr 6451 (312 bottles, they say) is 625L of usable capacity, for about 2000 euros - that's 3.2 euros per litre (this unit, incidentally, provides no humidity information to the user but will, if the room is "humid enough", do the "right thing")
Becken 250 (cheap domestic fridge) is 250 litres, for about 230 euros - that's 0.92 euros per litre.
So - over 3 times the price for the "real thing" - and, once I've bought 3 fridges instead of the single wine fridge, over 1300 euros I can spend on wine.
What have I missed?
For my particular requirements, is a domestic fridge a valid thing to use?
Am I a fool to be considering this?
|
Printable Version
Wine fridge vs Domestic Fridge? - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread