How Are Refrigerated Wine Cabinets Different than Refrigerators?

The main reason to store wine in a wine storage cabinet is to keep it at a consistent temperature near 55 degrees. Seems simple enough, right? Just get a cheap mini-fridge and use a thermometer to set the temperature. Unfortunately, these kinds of refrigerators also dehumidify. Humidity levels for wine need to be kept at 60-65% relative humidity to ensure the cork does not dehydrate and deteriorate. Although vegetable drawers often provide a higher humidity than the rest of the refrigerator, they are not consistent enough to depend on, or big enough to store more than a few bottles of wine.

Special refrigerated wine cabinets, more than your average mini-fridge, regulate humidity as well as temperature, which make them a good investment. If you are buying wine for the sake of drinking wine, and not as part of a collection, refrigerated wine cabinets offer a smaller-scale solution to installing a wine cellar in your home. No matter what wine varieties you purchase or experiment with in wine making, you can be sure that your refrigerated wine cabinets will keep every bottle in prime condition during wine storage until you want to enjoy it.