Wow. So you’re looking for a wine cooler that houses 50 bottles, huh? 50 bottles. That, my friend, is nothing to sneeze at. I’m pretty sure that owning 50 bottles of wine is good for entry into the serious wine lovers club. Congratulations! But anyway, let’s get back to the subject at hand. If you are looking for a decently priced wine cooler that can hold up to 50 bottles of wine, you might consider this offering from Kalamera.
Okay honestly, this is not my favorite wine cooler. It’s definitely not among the best wine coolers out there or which have been reviewed on our website. But it offers a large storage capacity and decent, quiet cooling functionality at an extremely competitive price. It may not be the best wine cooler, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. Quite the contrary, in fact. So let’s dive in and check it out.
Appearance
So let’s talk first about the design of this unit. The cabinet of the unit is black, and the door is glass trimmed with silver stainless steel. There is a large door handle which is not recessed, and unfortunately, it is the type of handle that your clothing might catch on accidentally to pop the door open. So just be careful with that.
The door is constructed of double pane glass which includes an anti-ultraviolet light layer, which will protect your wine bottles from being exposed to those potentially harmful rays.
The digital touchscreen temperature control is placed on the upper interior of the unit. This means that you have to open the door in order to change the temperature settings, which will let the cool air out and affect the consistency of the temperature. But other than that fault, it’s a fairly basic exterior design, with not much else to complain about.
Upon viewing this unit, you might immediately notice the wood shelves. These are nice, because many wine coolers come with simple metal shelves. But these shelves are constructed out of sturdy beech wood.
Storage Capacity
Speaking of beech wood shelves, it is important to note at this point in time that the storage capacity of this unit is not quite what it claims to be. If you use standard sized bottles of wine, you can fit 5 side by side on each of the 7 shelves. 5 x 7 = 35. So you can comfortably fit 35 bottles of wine in this model, without any doubling up.
The storage capacity nears 50 if you place 4 wine bottles on a shelf in one direction and place 3 more bottles on the same shelf but in the opposite direction of the first 4, so that the wine bottles interlock. In this configuration, you can fit 7 standard wine bottles on each shelf. But if you prefer your wine bottles to be all in the same direction and not interlocking, then the maximum number of standard bottles this unit can hold is 35. If you don’t mind the opposite directions and interlocking, then 7 bottles x 7 shelves = 49 bottles, which is close to 50. But I don’t know how to cram a 50th bottle in there. It’s already quite full with 35 bottles and even more full with 49.
Anyway, the point is that it does come close to holding 50 bottles if they are stacked in opposite directions. Close, but no cigar. It would be more accurately named a 49 bottle wine refrigerator. Or even a 35 bottle wine refrigerator.
Cooling
This model uses compressor-based cooling, but the compressor is a fairly quiet one. It might not be as quiet as some of the thermoelectric models, but it’s definitely one of the quietest compressor models I’ve encountered. An interior fan allows for even and consistent cooling throughout the interior of the unit.
This model has one of the largest temperature ranges I have seen on a single zone unit: a range of 40 to 66 degrees F. All wines can be stored within this temperature range (even the sparkling wines which are stored and served at chillier temperatures than most). A lot of wine cooler temperature ranges don’t go below 46 degrees (even for dual zone units), so it is nice to find a cooler that can actually handle the chilliest champagne and sparkling wine.
To conclude, this is a decent, functional unit. Its competitive price and fantastic temperature range make up for its small design flaws and slightly misrepresented storage capacity. Check it out at Amazon.com.
Further Information