- Reflective glass door with touch sensitive controls
- Adjustable thermostat with LED temperature display
- Low power consumption
- Soft interior light
- Adjustable temperature range: 54 ~ 66°F
Buy Sunpentown WC-20TL ThermoElectric with Touch Sensitive Controls 20-Bottle Wine Cooler Now
First the good I've had it a month and seems well made, is compact and quiet, styling is minimalist, just a black cube, and the temperature control is easy to set. The interior LED light seems unnecessary (it is controlled by a button on the front, not by opening the door) but looks good if you have the cooler on display. As you can see from the published dimensions, it is compact so not very convenient on the floor; it really needs to be raised for ease of access and not having counter space I bought a $8 (yes, that's eight dollars, or $7.99 to be precise) coffee table from IKEA to put it on.Then the not so good: yes, it is quiet but it does make a very soft moaning noise when cooling not a problem for me but could be for some.
But things you really need to know about before you purchase:
1. It does not remember the set temperature if it loses power, but resets to 52 degrees. I don't want to keep wine that cold, just want to control temperature fluctuations, and I keep it set to 60 degrees so a bottle of red is (almost) drinkable straight out of the cooler. Something to be aware of if you have frequent power outages.
2. And the big one only Bordeaux-style bottles (or smaller) fit. A few Burgundy-style bottles can be squeezed in one or two per shelf but the overall width is too narrow for a full shelf of four bottles, but some bottles are too big to fit at all without removing a shelf and reducing the number of bottes it can hold. I can live with that, storing mostly Bordeaux, but this would be a fatal flaw for many prospective purchasers and it does seem a pity when an extra inch in height and width would make such a difference.
So overall I am pleased and would buy it again great value for money but if you want to store many Burgundy-style bottles think again.I did extensive research on which wine cellar to buy and was quite confused! Some were too expensive or too large for the space I wanted to put this in. Chose to go with this Supentown cellar because it was compact, had the right temperature range for red wines, and was priced right. Didn't care for dual zone cellars because I don't store whites. So far this seems to be a pretty decent cellar specially given the price.
The good:
it's compact, looks MUCH better in person than the picture posted here
easy to set up, plug and play
has 5 shelves for 4 bottles each
temperature can be controlled from the outside with digital controls (ranges from 54 degrees to I think 62 degrees)
has a blue light on the inside that can be operated from the outside (looks nice, but not very useful)
perfect size for some like me who's not looking to go crazy on a large professional grade cellar, but still cares abut the select wines purchased
shelves are removable but this doesn't serve any purpose because removing even 2 shelves will not allow for a larger bottle to be stored vertically (a bottle shouldn't be stored vertically anyway)
reasonably quiet. It does have a hum to it that takes a day or so to get used to.
price is unbeatable for a good looking small-medium sized cellar
The not so good:
The shelves are perhaps just an inch too close to each other. I personally don't think they are flimsy, they are fairly standard and hold up well when the cellar is fully loaded. However, they do seem to feel heavy if a heavy bottle is inserted. So far they seem to be holding up fine.
This is a lightweight portable wine cellar. If only the top shelf is loaded with bottles and lower shelves are empty, I fear that it will topple. I make it a point to keep the weight evenly distributed with an extra bottle in the bottom shelf. I see another reviewer mentioned they have this on an IKEA coffee table NOT a good idea!!
Others have already pointed out that it doesn't accommodate Burgundy style bottles unless you remove a shelf.
No humidity control. Now this is not really a negative for this product I didn't expect it for this price, and most such cellars, even the expensive ones, don't include humidity control. It's just a feature that would have been awesome to have. It would make this a much longer term solution to storing wines.
When installing this for the first time, I noticed a strong plastic smell as soon as I opened the door maybe from the packaging. Left the door open (not connected to power) for an hour and the smell was mostly gone. Connected it and set the temperature to 57 degrees. It went from the initial reading of 68 degrees to 57 degrees in about 2.5 hours. Once this temperature was reached, I loaded it up at this time.
All in all this is a great portable, inexpensive wine cellar with storage for 20 bottles that is just the right size for my needs.
Want Sunpentown WC-20TL ThermoElectric with Touch Sensitive Controls 20-Bottle Wine Cooler Discount?
We purchased one of these a month ago and liked it so well we bought a second unit. It's quiet and the temperature control is accurate and consistent. Reviews of these coolers often complain that the capacity is overstated. However, if you insert a few of the bottles neck first, you can achieve the stated capacity.Save 23% Off
I've had mine in use for over a year now, and am very happy with it. Mind you, I'm not a wine snob, and really did not want to spend much money on a wine fridge. I bought this precisely because, although I keep "better" wines around for special purposes, I normally look for gems in the bottom and middle shelves. Consequently, I have had some of my "better" wines go bad in the past because I did not properly store them and forgot to drink them. I had thought about a wine fridge in the past, done some research, and generally thought they were too costly to be worthwhile for me.... Until an immediate need developed : I dropped in at a local Vintner to buy a couple bottles of my favorite Zin, and was informed that he only had a few cases left.The wire racks feel a bit flimsy, and the slots are a bit small. Fully filling the unit with twenty of the "normal" bottles I buy is not possible my case of Zin pretty much had this thing at capacity. Having cleared some space over the last year, I have not yet come across a more or less normalish wine bottle I could not jam in there one way or another. The flex in the racks actually works in your favor for this. I even managed to get some chianti in without taking the silly straw off.
It took a day or so the first time, but once all of the wine was brought down to temp, the temperature stabilized, and the unit has been quiet. Even during the initial cool down period, the noise was tolerable. This is not because I have a high tolerance for fan noise I'm one of those people who uses power tools to reduce computer noise. If I had to put up with the initial noise level on a constant basis, I may have eventually pulled the dremel out, but it has not bothered me since.
Set at 54F, the fridge thermometer I bought to verify the temperature reads from 56-58F, depending on exactly where I place it. I have checked for, but never noticed any variation at the same spot. Adding a few bottles will obviously unset this balance, raise the ambient temp slightly, and cause the unit to do some work but after a few hours, it returns to normal.
All in all, there are limits on capacity, but the temperature control is good enough for my limited purposes, the unit has been reliable for a year, the noise level is tolerable, it looks good, and it cost about half as much as any other unit I looked at. That's a good deal in my book, and I'm happy I risked it with this model. There were barely any reviews when I picked it up, and I'm happy to see others are having the same good experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment