Remarkably after 14 years of visiting wineries up and down the Napa Valley and beyond, I’ve never owned a wine refrigerator. Rather, all wine acquired for aging has been stored under my parent’s house in a dark and cold stable temperature environment. I’ve never kept more then a few bottles on hand at any one time. When NewAir reached out promoting several of their wine refrigerators, I was simultaneously intrigued and excited.
And in researching their company, I found they are a family owned business that began out of a condominium in Huntington Beach. Their growth has been remarkable and now they produce a variety of both heating and cooling products.
Keeping wine at a stable temperature for aging is one of the most important factors when storing wine. Wines do not age well with fluctuations in temperature. A wine warehouse near where I live is called 55 Degrees (Fahrenheit), from what I’ve read this seems like an optimal storage temperature for red wines. With limited space, I selected the NewAir 15” Built-in 29 Bottle Dual Zone Compressor Wine Fridge in Black Stainless Steel .
Quite, small (only 15 inches wide) this refrigerator fits quite nicely into rooms or kitchens which are limited on space. Thoughtfully built in, are two cooling zones so that one can easily set different temperatures (settings are either shown in Celsius or Fahrenheit) for both white and red wines (the top portion of the fridge, 40-50 degrees and the bottom 50-66 degrees Fahrenheit). The wooden shelves slide in and out easily – with space for 29 750ml bottles – I was actually able to squeeze in a few extra with some 375ml bottles.
The interior lighting responds with a simple touch of a button – several settings for dimmer or brighter options are available. And if there are under age drinkers in the house or others you don’t want accessing the fridge, a tiny locking mechanism at the bottom of the unit is available for quick and easy locking access.
And a water tray hooks on to the edge of one of the pull out wooden shelves – filled with water, this adds some humidity to the environment to help prevent corks from drying out.
In addition to this model, NewAir produces a remarkable amount of portable wine refrigerators – in a variety of shapes and sizes ranging up to 160 bottle units. If one is really limited on space, they even produce 12-bottle units. And they also manufacture built-in wine refrigerators.
It did not take much for me to fill this refrigerator to the limit – now we need to start drinking a few bottles!
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