I cant lie, I’ve never felt compelled to buy a wine fridge. I just didn’t think I needed one in my life. Turns-out I was wrong, and now I have a new best friend. So, when the nice folks at New Air decided to send me an 18 bottle wine fridge for review purposes…well…I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a look! At the very worst, if I wasn’t a big fan of the product, I’d sell the fridge in a yard sale, keep the cash, not do a review and send all their follow-up emails to spam…
The reason I say “if I wasn’t a big fan of the product” is because one of the one of the “perks” of writing about wine online is that I do receive quite a fair amount of promotional products. However; I will say that about 80% of what I receive never makes it onto this site…mainly because a decent amount of it tends to be garbage and I wouldn’t dare put my name on it.
Now don’t get me wrong, if there were a $1,000 check in every package I received, I’d sell-out my name faster than you could say “Châteauneuf-du-Pape” and you’d hear me singing the praises of EVERY promo-piece I received in the mail! Reviews such as: “Seriously guys! These wine glasses are AMAZING! They have an indentation in the side to ‘help aerate the wine,’ and essentially make a $10 bottle taste like a $1,000 bottle! You need these things in your life!” would be waaaay more common-place! [On a side-note, if the PR company is reading this who sent me those “aerating wine glasses”…they were junk….I can’t believe you’re trying to deceive the general public into buying them; and for what it’s worth, the Mrs. already broke them.]
As it turns out, PR agencies are cheap, the $1,000 checks never show-up, and I begrudgingly have to maintain my integrity. So here are some key highlights of my new best friend:
- The AWC-330E holds 33 bottles, which is just-about enough wine to see you through a weekend!
- I hold the temp in my fridge at around 55F, and only store reds is there for quick consumption. It’s no secret that I hardly-ever order wine BTG in restaurants, mainly because wine is served too warm i.e. room temp. That’s why it’s nice to always have bottles “on standby” at the right temperature.
- It has a cool blue light. Very calming and soothing to the eyes; and if it also played whale song, I would give it extra points!
- There’s a basket in the bottom. I’m not too sure what it’s there for – being a wine fridge and all – but I like the idea.
- It’s 22 inches wide, which is the EXACT width I needed it to be to fit in my “wine closet.” Talk about good luck!
- It locks, so I can minimize the number of “wine accidents” which seem to take place in my home. [By “wine accidents,” I mean the Mrs. and her friends opening and chugging $60+ bottles, simply because they “…have a pretty French label!” ]
So anyway, yeah, I’m converted. Buy a wine fridge.
