54 Bottle Built-In Wine Refrigerator

• Keeps up to 54 bottles chilled for drinking
• Double-pane glass door seals in storage temperatures
• Quality stainless steel frame and handle
• Cool LED lighting showcases your collection
• Reversible hinge for a left or right door swing

My family recently did a complete kitchen gut renovation and although the contractor purchased all the appliances directly, not through Amazon, we want to share our thoughts now that we have lived with them for almost 6 months. See our other reviews for the other products.

BACKGROUND

We used to have a wine fridge in our old apartment that was by Marvel. We tried to save some money this time but are regretting it.

THE GOOD

The shelves look good and slide in and out well

Bottles fit well on the shelves

The light is cool

THE BAD

The fridge is always straining and putting out a ton of heat

At least twice a month the fridge trips the circuit breaker

The control buttons are too attractive to our kid and she cannot stop pushing them

The control buttons can also be pushed accidentally by an adult simply by leaning against the counter top

The temperature fluctuates wildly even when no one is pushing the buttons

The blue light of the diodes on the control panel are so bright they light up the entire kitchen at night

SPECIAL NOTES

1. Be sure not to use an arc-fault breaker on this circuit as it will blow daily

2. Note that the installer will have to work very hard to secure this unit. After much work, ours is still slightly loose.

3. If you need a wine fridge for cooling multiple cases of wine before events, during which you are going to go through those bottles, and then you are going to turn the unit off until you prepare for the next event, then this unit is probably a good one for you. If on the other hand you would like to keep some decent bottles of wine at a constant temperature, this is not your unit.

COMMENTS TO OTHER REVIEWS

We cannot speak to repair as ours has run for the first 6 months; granted it keeps throwing its breaker but the fridge itself runs as long as it has electricity. And we give this unit one more star than the minimum because it does have *some* redeeming factors. That said, this unit is an example of getting what you pay for. Pay more for another brand and it will work better (Marvel in our experience), probably saving you electric expense along the way and certainly taking better care of your wine.

Buy 54 Bottle Built-In Wine Refrigerator Now

I have a previous generation of this wine cooler (model wc5100) and do not recommend it or the Avanti brand. First, the product has no humidity control, so when I adjusted the temperatures on purpose (for white or red wine) or by accident (there is no way to lock the temp control buttons, so they are a magnet to little children, and are easy to turn off accidentally during cleaning or just brushing up against the unit) condensation formed on the bottles and all of the wine labels fell off! Second, there is no way to lock the controls, which is a problem for the previously mentioned reasons. Third, the fan motor broke 6 months after the 5 year warranty expired. Last, the customer service was absolutely terrible. When I called for help within the first warranty year, on the condensation problem, customer service was completely disorganized and seemed to have no method for dealing with customer concerns. Although I always spoke to the same person, she never remembered me or my issue. So each time I called, I had to explain to her who I was, what my problem was and what steps she had previously asked me to take to address the issue. She also seemed to have no idea how to even proceed to solve the problem, and would send me in different directions each time I called, none of which, solved the problem. After 12 months of dealing with customer service, and making no progress whatsoever, I finally gave up, even though my product was under warranty. Although I lived with the condensation issue for 5 years, now the motor is broken and I will buy a new wine cooler definitely NOT an Avanti. I do not recommend Avanti products to anyone due to this experience.

Read Best Reviews of 54 Bottle Built-In Wine Refrigerator Here

I bought the previous Avanti 54-bottle model. I had finally decided to write a review, but just found out it was discontinued (hopefully for the right reasons, which were many). So this review may not necessarily apply to this specific (and newer) model. However, the looks, size, and functions seem to be substantially the same.

PROS:

This Avanti wine cooler is good looking and functional. It has a decent size, which allows it to fit nicely almost anywhere in my apartment.

The transparent windowed door allows you to see your wines and mixes well with the rest of my home environment.

The wine cooler has electronic controls, which makes it very easy to use and set its temperature.

The cooler has different compartments that make wine organization easy. It even has a relatively bigger lower section where you can fit bigger bottles (e.g. average 750 ml champagne bottles).

CONS:

The cooler's performance was very disappointing. The fan/motor broke twice within a 13 month period. The first time it started making noises. At the beginning those noises would go away after a few seconds... these seconds soon turned into minutes. A few days later the vibrations and noise were unbearable and wouldn't stop, unless I unplugged it. Soon not even that did the trick. I just had to permanently unplug it. Period. When that happened I decided to call Avanti's customer service. It was poor. It took 3 calls to get them to agree to send someone over to fix the problem. A couple of months after the cooler was supposedly fixed the problems started all over again. This time Avanti argued the warranty had just expired and refused to come back. Fixing it will now cost $250! That just seemed wrong.

So, after all my excitement when it first arrived, I am now the not-so-proud owner of an Avanti "wine display" that makes plenty of noise when turned on.

In summary, don't be fooled by the looks of the Avanti line of wine coolers. Unless Avanti has significantly upgraded the quality of its products and customer service, I would urge careful consideration of an alternative. Good luck!

Want 54 Bottle Built-In Wine Refrigerator Discount?

I purchased an Avanti wine cooler for my renovated kitchen. It was installed in July 2010 and quit working in early November 2010. Avanti sent a repairman who told us that it would take anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months to get parts. Follow up calls to Avanti are unanswered or go to a voice mail box with no response.

Follow call to the repair service who told us that as of late December 2010, Avanti cannot give a date when parts will be available. Do not buy this product!

Save 27% Off

Bought two of these, one didn't work at all and the other works poorly.

Unfortunately, both warrantees expired before the boxes were even opened due to renovation delays.

Avanti not only did not care, they refused to give me the name of an authorized service for repairs!

When I called a service they said the repair would cost almost as much as a new one due to the lack of freon.