Living in a house I keep some bottles in the basement where I feel that the bottles with be good will cooler temperatures and no excess heat. I will be moving to a condo soon and I will not have a basement to store my bottles of wine. My question, is a wine specific refrigerator really necessary? Can I buy a much cheaper non specific where I really want to keep a constant temperature.
Answer From Expert Roger Bohmrich MW
It's always preferable to store wine in a dark location with a constant cool temperature. However, this really matters most if you have expensive bottles which will be cellared for years. In that case, storage conditions are truly important to enable the wines to reach their fullest potential. If you have an assortment of wines which you drink fairly rapidly - over weeks or a few months - I wouldn't be concerned as long as the bottles are not stored in a rack in a hot kitchen or near a sunny window. Temperature-controlled cabinets are very useful, and smaller units can be acquired at modest cost. An even simpler solution for a small number of bottles would be the floor of a cool closet on the ground floor of your new condo, particularly one you don't open very often.
