- Freestanding digital wine chiller keeps up to 28 bottles properly chilled
- Thermo-electric cooling system protects wine from unnecessary vibration
- Ultra-quiet operation; does not use ozone-depleting chemicals
- Energy-efficient dual-paned glass door; 6 pull-out shelves included
- Measures 22 by 18-1/4 by 28-1/2 inches; 1-year limited warranty
Prior to purchase I had read various reviews about the unit's inability to properly cool. Despite the warning, I went ahead, hoping for better luck, as the unit had the best combination of price/capacity. I decided the best approach was to give the unit a trial run by getting it at my local target so that I could return it if it didn't work. I purchased a refrigerator thermometer along with it just to keep it honest. Sure enough, the unit was only able to knock about 10 degrees off of the ambient temperature, despite brazenly claiming to be at 56 degrees.
On the plus side, it was indeed quiet and sleek looking but it would've been nice to have some more cooling capability. For my purposes, however, this was fine. My intent was to prevent exposure to heat and I grew to like drinking my reds at about 65 degrees.
Flash forward one year and last night I reached into my cooler to find the bottles warm. A check of the thermometer showed that the inside of my vinotemp was now the balmiest spot in the house at 78 degrees. I tried cleaning the filter, unplugging etc. and once restarted the unit whirrs away uselessly; mindlessly warming the inside bottles. For $200, all I was able to coax out of this thing was a year of disingenuous underperformance.
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We bought this cooler to store some of our $50+ bottles of wine we don't have a huge collection by any means, but just wanted to make sure some of the better wine didn't get destroyed by a hot CA day.
The fridge took a day or so to cool down after filling it to capacity. I haven't tried measuring the actual temp using a seperate thermometer, but it says 54 and feels about the same. Although initially it was very quiet, it does whirr regularly, but it's still pretty quiet considering we have it 5ft from our living room couch and it doesn't bother us at all.
I wrote this review so I could include the capacity since one of my biggest problems when looking for a cooler was that it's very hard to tell what will actually fit. At max we filled this cooler with 2 magnums resting on the bottom, 3 champagne bottles and 17 bordeaux/burgundy style 750ml bottles. It suprised me that there was enough room for all this. The magnums fit diagonally (and there's not a lot of space, but it worked) after removing one shelf and raising the other. You won't be able to fit more than 3 champagne bottles on one shelf, but if you removed every other shelf I could see someone fitting up to about 12 or so champagne bottles total in the cooler. Yes, you should be a little careful when removing standard bottles because the fit is a little tight (just lift up the shelf above slightly and you will be fine) but the idea is not to be adding and removing bottles all the time so I don't think it's a big deal.
Hopefully that gives people an idea of the size of this cooler. It's worked out perfectly for us.
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I got the unit from a target store on a great holiday sale. I probably wouldn't pay retail for it. I set it up and let it sit overnight, then plugged it in and let it sit overnight again. With the thermostat set at 55 (the lowest possible), my own thermometer placed inside reads 60. It seems to be able to hold at 60 pretty well as the ambient temp in my desert apartment fluctuates through the day (no higher than 80 for the ambient temp).
The 60 degrees is not the best temp for storing wine, but its really not that bad for my $20-and-under-per-bottle collection. As I understand it (after talking to lots of people), the extra few degrees will eventually cut short the life of the bottle, but should be fine for a few to several years. I don't think my wines will go un-drunk that long.
In summary, I bought this cellar/fridge to store my wines, not to preserve them for 20 years. I needed something that was between a closet and a regular fridge. I also wanted something that had low noise, so I went with this instead of a compressor model. I think it works well for these purposes, especially at the discount sale price. It looks nice and doesn't have too much extra bulk.
If you are looking for something for long term cellaring of finer wines, I would recommend looking for a slightly colder unit. If you just want decent storage, this may work fine for you.
(there's two of these same items listed on amazon with the same model number I own, so I put the same review on both one is VT28TEDS and the other is VT-28TEDS)
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This product is so good I bought a second one. I especially like the non-compressor cooling, which works very well. The digital readout indicates temperature to readily be maintained at my 60 degree setting, which I consider to be a good European wine cellar temperature. They are totally silent. I bought the first unit on Amazon, and the second from Target where it was on sale and much cheaper than the Amazon price. The unit's packaging was fine, and had no cosmetic damage. I have moved them twice within the family room without issues.
I just recently was given this wine fridge as a Wedding gift from my in-laws. I have to say that I am quite satisfied with it thus far. I was rather concerned when I first got it being that I instantly went online and checked out personal reviews of the product. It seems that on many different online sites including amazon, there are a lot of complaints that this fridge does not cool. To be honest, I am not having that problem at all thus far in the first week.
I followed the instructions, let it sit for over 2 hours prior to plugging in...then got it up and running. I let the fridge run for 2 days prior to putting any wine in it because I wanted to get a thermometer first to check the temperature since I had heard so many complaints regarding the temp. The fridge temp gauge read 55, and my thermometer read 57...quite close. I then put about 10 bottles in it and while having the door open the temp went back up to the low 60s. Well, I now have waited over night, and the temp gauge is reading 55 again...my thermometer is reading 56, and it appears to be working perfectly. I read many reviews that insist this fridge won't go below 60, or in some cases even below 65. I am clearly getting the right temperature on mine. All in all, great product so far.
Not much to say about a motor, but the local appliance parts store didn't have one in stock, and if I have to wait for it to be shipped anyway then paying 2x the price doesn't make sense.
