The use of household wine refrigerators is becoming very common and they are in fact offered as an option with some new properties. As a house option they are in the class of media rooms and boat docks. These house options are certainly nice but wine refrigerators are seldom considered essential to survival. Wine refrigerators are designed to store wine from about 40 degrees Fahrenheit to about 55 or 60 degrees. They can be used to store or stage wines for serving; however, as serving and storing temperatures are different only one wine refrigerator can be used for one purpose at the same time.

The Correct Temperatures

For bottles that you plan on keeping for more than six months before consuming, or are laying down for aging, you may need to consider using wine refrigerators. The storage temperature of wine is considered ideal at a temperature of 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit and a humidity of seventy percent humidity. Temperatures below this slow the aging of the wine but otherwise have really no impact. If you live in the northern latitudes and are able to find a natural cavern, cellar or basement that maintains a fairly steady temperature in the summer and does not freeze in winter then you should not need to use wine refrigerators for the storage of the wine.

White wines are best served at 45 degrees. Normal general refrigeration maintains a temperature of from 32 to 40 degrees and is typically a little too cool for white wine. However, for most of the world allowing the wine to warm just a little is not considered a problem and the use of wine refrigerators are not required.

Red wines should be served at about 60 degrees, which is a little cooler than most room temperatures which are in the 65 degree range in winter and 70 in summers with air conditioning. For these wines general refrigeration is too cold for serving and you may want to consider locating a place where you can maintain airflow over the wine to keep the temperature over the bottles a little lower than room temperature. However, should you prefer and can afford, you can solve this problem with the use of wine refrigerators.

Commercial Operations

Wine refrigerators are in extensive use commercially. They can range in size from those that can hold just a few bottles to those that are designed to keep 100s of bottles or more. Wine cellar operations typically utilize several wine refrigerators. Each device maintains the wine inside at the requisite temperature. There would be wine refrigerators for long-term storage and for the staging of the various varietals for serving.