Emerson 8 Bottle Wine Cooler

Does The Job

I only drink on average one bottle of wine per week: one glass per day over four or five days (I preserve the rest of it using a VacuVin or the Private Preserve system) and also buy relatively inexpensive wines that don't require long aging. So this 8-bottle wine cooler from Emerson is perfect for me; it also keeps me on a budget - I am limited to having only eight bottles of wine at any one time.



The unit itself is attractive and seems to be well-built. The packaging is also pretty sturdy. There are two metal racks that hold 4 standard (burgundy or bordeaux) bottles each and be aware that long riesling or oversized Champagne bottles won't fit. Also unlike some other wine coolers you can't squeeze in more bottles by taking out the shelves and stacking bottles on top of one another. You're pretty much limited to 8.



This cooler operates on the thermoelectric method (also known as the Peltier effect - look it up on Wikipedia) meaning there is no compressor and the only moving part is a fan to circulate air. There are three buttons on the front handle: one to turn on and off the led light inside one to turn up the temperature in one-degree increments and one to turn down the temperature in similar increments. Each time you press any of the buttons a digital thermometer lights up to show you the internal temperature. When you press either the up or down temperature button the thermometer also lights up to show you the desired temperature you have selected.



When I first plugged this in the thermometer was in the mid 70's. I set it for 57 degrees and it took about 4 hours or so for it to get to that point. I've had this cooler for over a month now and every time I check the temperature it is 57 degrees. The room it is in gets pretty warm like to the low-mid 80's but so far this little unit has managed to maintain a constant temperature. If you keep opening and closing the door or changing wines of course the temperature is going to vary but since I rarely open it (just once per week to get my wine of the week and then when I add wines to it) the temperature doesn't vary.



So far I am quite happy with this product. It is totally inadequate if you are trying to build a wine collection but if you need something small just to hold your wines at the right temperature this fits the bill very nicely.



Addendum: It has been about three months since I purchased this (I actually purchased another one a few weeks after the 1st one). I bought a couple of digital thermometers to compare their readings with the built-in ones. The built-in thermometers say 57 degrees 99% of the time whereas the readings on the digital standalone thermometers show readings that vary from the mid 58-degree to high 60-degree range. I live in Southern California and it's been ridiculously hot this summer - the ambient temperature in the room where these are located gets up to 86 or 87 degrees until I get home from work and turn on the air conditioner so under the circumstances I think these units are performing well. I don't want to turn down the thermostat on them because I feel that will be too much of a strain. I'm happy with a level of 58-60 during the hot summer. Just thought I should share this update with readers though - the built-in does not agree with the standalone temperature readings.More detail ...