Professor Rapp mentioned that she was a fan of Subzero wine fridges during the last class, so I decided to do a little research on the cost and quality of different fridges.
On Amazon, the best seller listed was a 24" $849 Kalamera model, but there were several well-rated, similarly-sized models in the ~$200 range. The "Amazon's Choice" option was a $190 Ivation model. However, that model is slightly smaller than 24".
On the Subzero website, the 24" model retails for about $4,000. That's almost a bigger brand premium than we see in the wine itself!
Finally, I took a look at some of the recommendations on the Wine Enthusiast website. They offered a couple of Wine Enthusiast-branded refrigerators for ~$500, and a couple of N'Finity options for about ~$1,000.
I looked for more information on the Wine Enthusiast website to understand refrigerator quality. It seems that under-counter units require front vents, and tend to be slightly more expensive. These are the refrigerators that can "blend into" your kitchen cabinets, rather than being standalone. Having two temperature zones (to store red vs. white wines) also increased price. Overall, I didn't see much information to justify a large brand premium -- but if any Subzero fans out there want to make their case, please comment below!
I always thought the two temperture zones were because white wine needs to be stored at a different temperature than red wines! But if you look at most of the two-zoned wine refrigerators, they all have one zone smaller than the other. Does it mean people drink more reds than whites?
ReplyDeleteIt turned out both reds and whites should be stored at about 55F. But for serving, people tend to prefer their whites at a lower temeparature, therefore we need a different zone for the ready-to-serve whites. And the larger zone is for storage of both red and white.