It’s nearly time to put some fizz in your summer! Thursday
August 13th is National Prosecco Day, when wine lovers all over the country
will be popping a cork or two and enjoying a splash of Mediterranean sparkle.
Fingers crossed, the weather will warm to the occasion too,
and all you Prosecco-lovers out there will be able to enjoy the refreshing
Italian fizz the way it is meant to be - ice cold on a hot day.
But on that topic - what are your chilling options? Have you
got room in your fridge for a couple of bottles of the good stuff? Come to
think of it, are you tired of having to find new places to stack jam jars and
margarine tubs every time you want to chill a bottle of wine.
If so, National Prosecco Day is just the excuse you need to
think about investing in a wine chiller. Just think about it - instead of
worrying about space and that awful feeling when a friend drops by unexpectedly
and you haven’t got a bottle chilled, you can have a whole selection of bottles
all cooled to perfection at any one time, tucked neatly out of the way just
waiting for you.
But what type of wine fridge should you go for? If you’re
new to the world of wine chillers, here are some things to consider when making
your choice.
Standalone, built in or integrable?
One of the first decisions to make is where you are going to
put your chiller. Standalone wine fridges have the advantage of flexibility -
you can plug them in wherever you like, plus they are available in a much wider
range of sizes. However, for appearances sake, you may prefer your chiller to
be built-in as part of your kitchen. This takes more work, and unless you are
fitting a new kitchen will probably mean having to rip out at least one unit.
A simpler option is an integrable wine fridge, which is
designed to slot into an existing kitchen unit (after removing shelves etc)
without having to be fully fitted. Depending on how you look at things, the
downside is that integrable chillers are built to standard kitchen cabinet
sizes, which means they are pretty big. That’s great if you want to store a lot
of bottles of wine, not so great if you’re short of space.
Chiller zones
The most straightforward wine fridges do one obvious job -
they cool your wine down to serving temperature, which for a sparkling wine
like Prosecco is 6 to 8oC. However, if you are serious about your
wines, you will also want to regulate their temperature for long-term storage.
Dual temperature zone chillers are great for this, providing a second, warmer
area that keeps your wine between 12 and 14oC, perfect for long-term
storage and ageing.
Energy efficiency and noise
As we are all well aware, refrigerators can be noisy - an
unavoidable consequence of requiring electric motors to run the compressors and
fans. Adding a chiller to your kitchen where there is already a standard fridge
can double this background hum, while a noisy chiller in a living space can
quickly become a big irritation.
Energy efficiency and noise go hand-in-hand with wine
chillers. Modern engineering has come up with all sorts of solutions to produce
low-noise fans and electric motors. But a more basic principle is, the better
your wine fridge is at getting rid of the heat it generates, the less the
motors will have to work. That also means consuming less electricity.
Whichever wine fridge you opt for, make sure you will be
enjoying perfectly chilled fizz long after National Prosecco Day by insuring
your unit against damage or mechanical failure. Check
out our great appliance policy deals and get a free quote today.
*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.