You’ll want it front and center
The more I get “in” with my local wine crowd, the more I learn about wine coolers. I’m telling you, this has become somewhat of an obsession for me. I am always searching for the next and newest best cooler. (As a side note, I am also slowly becoming obsessed with different wine-making products, maybe I will add reviews of those here one day as well).
In my obsessive quest for more information I sent out feelers in my community as I searched around for the best 21-bottle cooler. After many unsuccessful attempts to glean the information I needed strictly from internet sources, I was connected with a local restaurant owner who proudly told me that he uses three 21-bottle wine coolers in his back room. He invited me over to take a look and what I found, hidden away in the recesses of this restaurant’s unseen corridors, were three stunningly beautiful wine coolers, all perfectly matching one another.
As I’m certain you have surmised by now, those three coolers were all AKDY 21-bottle dual zone coolers. Why he hid these pieces of art away from the public is beyond me. If I owned that restaurant I would have prominently displayed these on the restaurant floor, even if that meant losing space for tables. Now that I think of it, I really need to put my passion for wine coolers aside if I ever open my own restaurant, because those tables would surely be missed and a choice like that would definitely affect revenue.
The Looks
Since I have clearly become fascinated with the outward appearance of this cooler, let’s start with a quick discussion/description of it now. First, I love that you can see the wine and shelves through the glass front door – it offers a feeling of elegance. This elegant appearance is why I questioned the restaurant owner about his choice to place these beauties out of sight.
Yes, after writing that last part I needed to know why he made this choice, so I called him up. He had a very good reason – one I am ashamed to say I hadn’t thought of. His restaurant is open and airy with large windows running along three walls, letting in a lot of sunlight. Without UV protective tint on the glass door, the wine inside is not protected from the harmful effects of sunlight. Ah ha! That’s why he shoved them in the back room! You may want to take similar precautions if you were planning to put these in a rather sunny space.
Anyway, adding to the elegant appearance of this standalone unit is its sleek, black outer casing. Any standalone unit needs a nice outer casing, otherwise it looks strange sitting by itself against a wall. The long, bowed stainless steel handle and black trim on the glass door go one step further in making this unit look like it belongs in the front room of an upscale restaurant.
The Function
Life isn’t all about style, after all, so let’s talk about function! A high tech thermoelectric cooling system keeps your wine at exactly the right temperature without causing the disruptive noise and vibration of a compressor-style cooling system. This means that the sediment will settle nicely along the bottom side of the bottle as it rests gently inside on the wooden shelves.
Control the upper and lower sections of this cooler using the long control panel that separates the two sections. You can adjust the upper section in a range of 44 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit and the bottom can be adjusted between 50 and 66 degrees. This makes the top perfect for those cooler wines, such as whites and desserts, while the bottom is perfect for those slightly warmer wines. If you like all reds, though, you can take advantage of both sections for one kind!
On a related note, I like that the sections of this wine fridge are not even in size. Too often, I find that companies create only coolers with evenly sized sections. Whether you use your wine fridge at home or at a restaurant, you may find that you need more of one kind than another. Most often, people prefer red to white, so it is nice to see that the warmer section (the bottom) is larger than the colder section.
Overall
Though I don’t always make a habit of putting closing paragraphs on these reviews I want to take the time to do that with this one. I feel it’s important to summarize all of the great qualities and functions of this cooler in one space, because there is so much, you may have already forgotten some of it (if you’re anything like me, you’ve already forgotten at least half).
This stylish cooler is worthy of being showcased in any room, but should be kept out of direct sunlight because it does not feature tinted glass. It boasts a super-quiet, non-disruptive, no-vibration thermoelectric cooling system, pull-out wooden shelves, and two separate and unevenly sized sections for two types of wine.
For even more information I would recommend the product listing here on Amazon.com. As you can see, it’s very fairly priced for a dual zone cooler of this size, and most customers speak highly of it.
Further Information