Best Wine Fridges for 2020

We spent more than 60 hours researching and testing wine fridges, including hands-on tests with nine of the best ones. We interviewed Michele Thomas, a sommelier, freelance wine writer, and sales associate at The Greene Grape in Brooklyn, New York; Eric Asimov, wine critic for The New York Times (parent company of Wirecutter); and several refrigeration and HVAC specialists. I’ve written about appliances generally for almost six years, first as a staff writer at Reviewed.com and now for Wirecutter, and I’ve covered both mini-fridges and freezers in the past.

If you always have a supply of wine, no matter how small, and care even a little bit about preserving its quality, you should consider getting a wine fridge. If you buy wine only once in a while and always finish it, then you probably don’t need one. Wine fridges are dual-purpose: They keep your wine from spoiling, and they let you store a bunch of bottles that would otherwise take up valuable space in your main refrigerator.

Wine is best stored between 50 °F and 60 °F. Exposure to temperatures above or below that can damage wine in only a few weeks (PDF), according to the World Food Logistics Organization. If you have a small collection or just a few bottles you’d like to preserve (reds or whites, but especially whites), a wine fridge is a better place to store it than any regular fridge, pantry, or countertop, because it provides an ideal climate that those places cannot.

This guide focuses primarily on thermoelectric wine fridges. We like them because they’re cheaper, quieter, and more efficient than fridges with compressors. They also vibrate less and, because they tend to be smaller, they fit easily into most homes. The downside with thermoelectric fridges is that they hardly work when ambient temperatures exceed 80 °F or fall below 50 °F, so they really have to be used indoors. If you plan to put the fridge somewhere with significant temperature swings—like a garage or a covered patio—you should get a fridge with a compressor. This is the same tech used in regular refrigerators, and it continues to regulate temperatures at these extremes.

Regardless of their size, freestanding wine fridges are more alike than they are different. But judging from user reviews and our own testing, fridges with capacities of less than 24 bottles seem to be better built, with more reliable temperature control and fewer quality issues. This is why we didn’t end up recommending any of the larger models we tested. But even the best freestanding wine fridges are not the classy luxury statements that the wine stored in them often is. They’re built more like mini-fridges than high-end appliances, with the same modest attention to function over form.

All wine should be stored between 50 °F and 60 °F, according to the World Food Logistics Organization (PDF). That’s considerably warmer than a standard fridge and considerably cooler than most cupboards. Wine fridges are designed to keep a steady temperature in that range.

The occasional aberration isn’t a huge cause for concern. If there’s a power outage and your wine spends a day or two at temperatures above 75 °F, that’s not enough to create off-flavors, protein hazes, or excess carbon dioxide. For that to happen you need prolonged exposure of one to four weeks for that (PDF). Exposure to 85 °F or higher (like in a car on a hot day) is where you should start to worry, as damage can occur within 30 minutes. Freezing temperatures will also damage wine. So don’t chill your wine in the freezer; stash it in the fridge if you want to cool it quickly.

You’ll also want to keep bottles stored on their side, ideally at a slightly upward angle (maybe 15°), though the horizontal shelves in basic wine fridges (like those we tested) do just fine. This keeps the cork wet, preventing it from drying out, and minimizes oxidation of the wine.

Aging is the art of improving the quality of certain vintages, and by “certain” we mean less than 2 percent of all wine. Most wine is meant to be consumed within a year or two of bottling. Although a wine fridge is a good way to make sure those special vintages stay in their comfort zone, it’s more about preservation—making sure a basic wine doesn’t spoil or lose its quality within its brief life span.

We started by interviewing a bunch of experts and reading as much as we could about wine fridges, wine preservation, and wine storage. Then we made a spreadsheet containing 45 commonly available models and started narrowing the contenders. We limited our search to freestanding, single-zone models with capacities between 12 and 36 bottles. (A single-zone fridge has one compartment with one temperature setting, whereas dual-zone models have two. “Freestanding” just means the fridge has finished sides and doesn’t need to be installed.) These can fit almost anywhere in your home, don’t cost very much, and offer plenty of storage space for most wine drinkers.

We like the 12- to 36-bottle capacity range because it allows you to fit at least one full case of wine without going over the top in terms of price, size, floor space, or build-out requirements. The bottle capacity listed for every wine fridge refers to standard 750 mL bottles. If you go through a lot of 1½-liter magnums or oddly shaped burgundy bottles, you’re probably going to have to remove a shelf to fit them.

Within those limits, here are the things that separate a good wine fridge from all the rest:

• Quality construction –  More than anything, a good wine fridge is something you can depend on. The shelves are sturdy and easy to remove but not too flimsy in their guide rails. The door opens on a smooth axis and doesn’t wobble. The gaskets are airtight and the materials firm and secure. The plastic hinge covers don’t come loose. It has four leveling legs and each one can cover at least a half-inch lift off the floor. The handle, if it has one, is securely bolted to the door, and the window is sturdy enough to withstand the occasional bump.
• Accurate thermostat – The temperature displayed on the thermostat should be accurate, so you know you have your wine in the right comfort zone. It doesn’t need to be exact, but we’ve seen some fridges be off by as much as 5 °F between the display temperature and the actual temperature. That’s enough to fall outside the desired range without you knowing it.
• Fits a variety of bottle sizes – The fridge can fit a tall riesling bottle in any slot without brushing up against the window, and it can fit a wide magnum bottle without removing a shelf.
• Quiet operation – A wine fridge should never be louder than a dishwasher or even your kitchen fridge. Most models we looked at are thermoelectric and virtually silent. Compressor models are a bit louder.
• Digital thermostat – The thermostat should be digital and able to be set to precise temperatures. Wine storage is important enough that you shouldn’t have to guess the fridge’s temperature with an unnumbered dial like those you find in mini-fridges.
• Neutral design – A wine fridge should blend easily into any kitchen, dining room, or basement. It doesn’t have to be a fashion statement but it also shouldn’t compromise the room’s decor. A lot of people keep their wine fridges out of sight, but it’s still best to avoid models with bright, garish finishes or overly flashy LED displays.
• Sensible controls – The buttons should be responsive. The internal LED light should shut off automatically if left on. The display LED should be dimmable or able to be turned off (this is frustratingly rare). The control lock, if it has one, shouldn’t turn on within seconds—it should be set manually, if at all.
• Generally, good user reviews – A good wine fridge will have consistently positive user reviews with no obvious quality-control problems. Freestanding models tend to have lower average ratings compared with, say, fridges or dishwashers. Most are made in high-volume factories without the most robust quality-control standards. We’re not able to test for long-term performance, so we took very seriously any trend we identified among online user reviews, and even dismissed one of our top contenders because of a consistent complaint about malfunctioning temperature controls.

Here are some things that may or may not be important to you. We didn’t favor them one way or the other.

• Consistent temperature – Temperature swings in wine fridges rarely exceed two or three degrees in a stable environment. That’s not big enough to threaten the wine inside. You only need the fridge to hold somewhere in the range of 50 °F to 60 °F to keep wine healthy. Even if the fridge constantly fluctuates a few degrees up or down, the thermal inertia of the cooled wine will ward off spoilage.
• Tinted window – Light, especially ultraviolet light, is bad for wine. A darkened window gives added protection, but you can avoid the problem by storing the fridge away from windows or direct sunlight. UV exposure typically needs to last many months for it to damage wine.
• Lock – Some wine fridges have key locks to ward off curious children or would-be thieves. It’s a nice bonus if you think that’ll be a problem, but for most people, it’s probably not a concern.
• Cutout for upright bottles – Some wine fridges have a bottom rack that can fit upright bottles (useful for bubbly wines and beer that’s being aged). But still, wine should be stored horizontally, so we didn’t see a huge benefit to cutouts other than aesthetics.

You shouldn’t have to spend more than $225 for a wine fridge that has all or most of these features. If you limit the capacity to 12 to 18 bottles, a good fridge with everything you need and nothing you don’t will cost no more than $180. Scaling-up in price will get you larger capacities with more elegant design components, such as wood-finished rolling shelves.

Once we knew what we were looking for, we had nine of our top contenders shipped to an apartment in Boston for testing.

We tested each of our nine contenders with an eye on build quality, storage capability, and temperature accuracy. Although the process was meant to pick out the best performers, it was more about revealing the things that a buy page or floor model often doesn’t—those annoying little details or irregularities that add up to something you want to avoid. Here’s what we tested:

• Construction: We tested and compared notes on the overall durability and build quality of each fridge. We noted the sturdiness of the hinges and windows, the strength and use of the leveling legs, the overall “feel” of the materials, the design of the handle, and the maneuverability of the shelves. We played around with the racks to see if they came loose from the rails, and made sure they could support the weight of a lot of wine. We looked for any manufacturing flaws or dents and compared notes on how everything was packaged.
• Capacity: We made sure each fridge could fit the advertised capacity. We also tested how well they could fit two unusually shaped bottles: a 1½-liter magnum bottle and an unusually tall and skinny 750 mL bottle. And we noted whether or not the fan or heat sink at the back of the fridge compromised any internal space.
• Thermostat accuracy and consistency: We set each fridge to 54 °F and used a thermometer to measure how close it got to the target over a period of 75 minutes, noting any fluctuations over the same period. We did this twice for each fridge—once for temperatures at the top of the fridge, and once at the bottom. We used this same data to compare temperature consistency—how close to the target temperature each fridge stayed.
• Noise: We measured how loud each fridge was from a distance of two feet, and took note of any annoying humming or buzzing noises.
• Aesthetics: We made some basic judgments about the fridge’s overall look and design, favoring those with a dark, neutral appearance that can blend into any environment. We also looked at the brightness of each unit’s LED controls—could it be turned off or dimmed? What about the interior LED light?
• Controls and ease of use: We looked at how easy and straightforward everything was to operate. Were the controls simple and responsive? Is there a lock, and, if so, did it turn on automatically? Did the light turn off automatically? How are the temperatures set—a digital thermostat or dial? Was it easy to unpack and set up?

Before we tested any of the wine fridges we were planning on making two separate picks: one large (28 to 36 bottles) and one small (12 to 18 bottles). We thought this would satisfy the largest segment of readers. But testing revealed each of the larger units had some fundamental flaw we couldn’t look past. Temperatures were either way off or didn’t get cold enough, the thermostat didn’t allow precise control, the build quality was too cheap, or the user reviews revealed some obvious manufacturing flaw we couldn’t ignore. Our findings are not enough to say definitively that larger wine fridges as a whole are flawed—but it is concerning that all the specific models we tested had some irredeemable problem.

The Ivation IV-FWCT181B has the strongest build quality and the most accurate temperature performance of any wine fridge we tested. It can fit 18 bottles in its wire racks—enough to hold 1½ cases of wine—without creating a very big footprint. The thermostat was one of the most accurate we tested. It operates in near silence, and has one of the most elegant and straightforward designs we’ve seen for a wine fridge this size. Its controls are sensible and easy to use, with a digital thermostat and an internal LED that shuts off on its own after a few minutes. And it also has consistently positive user reviews, meaning it’s not likely to cause headaches in the long run.

We had no complaints about the overall build quality of the Ivation IV-FWCT181B. The hinges are tight and hold the door on a smooth swivel. The materials are strong and show no sign of wear and tear after shipping. The smoked-glass window is thick and helps keep out damaging UV light. Each of the four leveling legs is secure and able to balance the machine on any uneven surfaces.

The Ivation holds 18 standard-size wine bottles, which is quite a lot for a fridge this cheap and compact. As with all but one of the models we tested, you’ll need to remove one of the shelves to fit a 1½-liter magnum bottle. It will fit a tall riesling bottle, too.

We found the Ivation’s thermostat to be among the most accurate and consistent we tested. In the top half of the fridge, temperatures hovered within 1 °F of the target 54 °F for most of the 75-minute test period—closer and more consistent than any other model we tested. The second test, measuring the bottom of the fridge, was less accurate, with temperatures falling three degrees or more below the target. We’re not too concerned about this because it is still within the acceptable temperature range for storing wine (besides which, it had already begun to correct itself toward the end of the test period).

Like most thermoelectric wine fridges, the IV-FWCT181B is virtually silent, with only a faintly audible hum if you’re standing right next to it. (It’s so quiet that our decibel meter couldn’t get a reading.) We really like the way it looks, too—a bit like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s got a sleek black finish with a simple four-button control panel: up/down arrows for setting the temperature, an on/off button to control the interior LED light, and a lock to freeze all the settings. That’s really all you need. The interior light automatically shuts off after 10 minutes to keep light to a minimum—something we haven’t seen any other wine fridge do. It’s a nice touch for forgetful people worried about too much light exposure.

The Ivation has pretty solid reviews on Amazon, though we wish it were available at a few other retailers. It currently holds an average rating of four stars (out of five), across 109 user reviews, with 77 percent giving it at least four stars. That’s pretty good for a wine fridge and certainly not low enough to raise concerns about possible quality-control issues.

Like all but one of the wine fridges we tested, the Ivation requires you to remove one of the shelves to comfortably fit a magnum bottle. We also had some trouble fitting our extra-tall bottle in the center of the middle racks—where the heat sink juts out into the fridge’s interior. The bottle still fit, but only by jamming it against the door glass.

The thermostat is a bright blue LED that you can’t dim or turn off. If you plan on putting the fridge in a dimly lit room, like a candlelit dining room, this might be irritating. But don’t expect any other model to serve you better; of all the wine fridges we tested, only the two Magic Chef units had dimmer thermostat LEDs, and even those could not be turned off entirely.

The wire shelf racks feel a little loose in the guide rails when you pull them out (like you would if you want to inspect all the bottles on one shelf), but not loose enough to threaten the stability of the bottles stored on them—just be careful not to yank a full shelf out too quickly. Most of the wine fridges we tested have the same rack design, as they’re all probably made in the same factory in China.