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 8^oC. 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 14^oC, 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.

Take a bow Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry. Thanks to your sterling efforts, baking has been elevated to the status of a treasured national pastime in Britain these days. Spending a lot more time at home through the coronavirus lockdown has helped, of course.

With more of the same set to follow this winter - and The Great British Bake Off back on our screens just in time - it is fitting that we are about to celebrate National Baking Week to get those cake-sensitive taste buds match fit again.

But what’s that? You’ve never baked a thing in your life before and wouldn’t know a whisk from a wooden spoon? Never fear, because in this technological age, there are plenty of clever kitchen gadgets to help even the most culinary-impaired of us bake up a storm. Here are some of our favourite baking appliances to try out.

Tefal Cake Factory

If you feel like you only have to look at an oven for your baking experiments to end in disaster, the Tefal Cake Factory is definitely the appliance for you. This brilliant standalone appliance will have you wowing family and friends with your baking skills, no matter what it is you want to bake. Cakes, cookies, brownies, you name it, the Cake Factory delivers perfect results every time with five intelligent baking programs that set temperature and time just right. All you have to do is make the mix, choose the container and voila, sit back and wait for a tasty treat!

Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor

For anyone who thinks all the beating and whisking and folding and kneading involved in baking sounds too much like hard work, a food processor is a must have. Essentially an electric mixer with different attachments to perform different tasks, the beauty of a food processor is how versatile it is. The Ninja 3-in-1 goes above and beyond in that regard - not only will it whip up a cake mix or cookie dough in seconds, it also comes with two different blender attachments (big and small) for whipping up everything from smoothies to sauces.

Bosch MaxoMixx Hand Blender

Speaking of versatile, the Bosch MaxoMixx is a super-handy stick blender with bells on. As well as having the usual blades for blending smooth sauces, soups and pastes, it also comes with a whisk attachment, which makes it a baker’s best friend when it comes to beating eggs or creaming a cake mix together. Not only that, it comes with not one but two containers, one a measuring vessel and the other with an integrated blade attachment of its own - perfect for blitzing nuts or making your own homemade spice mix.

Salter Cook Bluetooth Smart Kitchen Scale

Finally, no wannabe baker should step into the kitchen without a good set of scales. Salter has been leading the market in kitchen scales since the 1760s. And although they still do a great line in classy traditional mechanical scales, we love this ultra-modern digital version. Not only does it have an impressive weighing range of 1g all the way up to 10kg and provide instant conversions to imperial and to fluid measurements (ml and fluid oz), it also connects to the Salter Cook app, which gives you recipes to follow step-by-step and lets you read measurements on your phone.

Once you are all set up and ready to start baking your masterpieces, don’t forget to protect your shiny new appliances with Row.co.uk’s fantastic value kitchen appliance cover. 

*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.