Depending on your needs and budget, wine chillers are available to cool a single bottle or to store hundred of bottles at the appropriate temperature.
Wine chillers run from low tech to high tech, and from less than twenty dollars to thousands of dollars. They can cool a single bottle of wine, or store dozens of bottles of wine at the appropriate temperature and humidity. Many options are available to suit your needs and budget.
The low end wine chiller is adequate to cool a single bottle of white wine. The most common model is constructed of flexible gel packs, and must be chilled in the freezer before use. The bottle of wine is placed in the center of the cold wine chiller, which gradually imparts the chill from the ice pack to the bottle of wine. Noticeable cooling of the wine occurs within 5 to 10 minutes, and a bottle of wine can be kept cool by the gel packs for up to 60 minutes. This type of wine chiller requires advance planning before use, as it must be extremely cold to chill effectively. It may be stored in the freezer so as to be available whenever needed. The gel pack ice chillers do not fit magnums or irregularly shaped bottles. It is also difficult to control the temperature of the wine when using this device.
Another low tech, low cost option is a marble or terra cotta wine chiller. These models are better used to maintain the temperature on a pre-chilled bottle of wine than to actually cool the bottle. Marble chillers may be placed in the freezer an hour before use, and both models can be cooled before use by filling with ice and cold water.
A step up in both technology and price are electric wine chillers that utilize ice cubes and water to chill a single bottle of wine. Whirlpool action is used to chill a bottle of wine to drinkable temperature within five minutes. No advance planning is needed, just ice cubes. The whirlpool motion does generate noise. Some models may be used to warm too cool red wine by using warm water instead of ice and cold water. This type of wine chiller is also available in a rechargeable battery operated model.
For those who don't want to deal with ice cubes and water, an electric single bottle wine chiller is available that uses food safe gel cells for its cooling action. This model claims to chill wines in less than seven minutes. A battery pack allows this unit to be fully portable.
Some electric wine chillers allow the user to select a temperature from a number of preset temperatures. A LED display indicates whether the unit is chilling or warming and when the desired temperature has been reached.
If it is important to always have properly chilled wine available consideration should be given to investing in a multi-bottle wine storage unit. The price of these units ranges from a hundred dollars for a small countertop unit to thousands of dollars for a unit that houses hundreds of bottles. The best of these cellars offer three temperature zones. White wines and sparkling wines can be stored in a chilling compartment that keeps them ready to drink at 40 to 44 degrees. Red wines are stored in a separate compartment at a temperature of 62 to 66 degrees. A third compartment can be used for long term aging of wines, maintaining a temperature of 53 to 57 degrees, with proper humidity. These units are often available as decorative stand alone units or as built-in units.
