Undercounter

Wine cooler fridge for under counter

An undercounter wine cooler is a beautiful way to store, nurture and show off your wine, and often installed in the kitchen under the table top.

A wine refrigerator in the kitchen is a great way to have all your beverages such as wines, beer or soft drinks ready at the perfect serving temperature. 

What is an undercounter wine fridge?

To define an undercounter wine fridge two criteria needs to be met:

1. The height of the wine fridge has to be lower than (or equal to) the height of the kitchen table top

2. The wine fridge as to be made for built-in purposes

Built-in vs under counter wine cooler

A built-in-ready wine cooler is a wine cooler designed to fit in between your kitchen cabinets. This means that the wine cooler has the ability to take in fresh air at the front bottom and often has a width of 60 cm (like a standard kitchen cabinet module).

The only difference between a built-in and under counter cooler may therefore only lie in the height of the cooler.

Under counter vs freestanding wine cooler

In the above section we talked about the air intake and size requirements for a wine cooler to be ready for built-in and under counter purposes.

When it comes to a freestanding wine cooler, we often see that the wine cooler doesn’t have a dedicated air intake at the front bottom. This means that the wine cooler needs space to the sides and above the cooler. Therefore, it isn’t suited for under counter purposes.

How to install wine cooler undercounter

When installing a wine cooler under your table top, please make sure that the wine cooler is ready for a built-in purpose. Additionally, you should make sure the wine cooler has a way to get rid of the hot air behind the fridge. We normally recommend some sort of ventilation duct in the table top or to the adjacent kitchen cabinets.

Dual zone undercounter wine cooler fridge

When it comes to an undercounter wine cooler fridge, the height and depth is your limit. This means a lower bottle capacity, which is why you should consider going for a single zone or dual temperature undercounter wine cooler.

Normally, when a wine fridge is made with two separate temperature zones, the bottle capacity is lower compared to a single temperature zone. However, to a lot of people a dual zone undercounter wine fridge is the desired choice in the kitchen because a two-temperature zone refrigerator fits the serving purpose (i.e. colder for white and warmer for red) compared to a long-term storage purpose.

Undercounter wine cooler with two temperature chambers

Also called a dual zone wine cooler and to most wine professionals considered a wine service cooling cabinet. A wine service fridge is defined by having two separate zones with different temperature settings. 

For instance, you can have a wine fridge with the one compartment set at 7 °C packed with your white wine, sparkling wine, dessert wine or even a beer or two.

In the other compartment there is room for the red wines at, let’s say, 17 °C. 

Why having two zones in an undercounter wine cooler?

Besides the ability to keep your wines ready at perfect temperature for serving and that you are saving space in the regular fridge, there is one great advantage about dual zone wine cooler cabinets. 

Imagine hosting a dinner party with great company, and you have reached the dessert and maybe you are passing the Port decanter (clockwise, obviously!). You and your guests are not quite yet ready for the digestives, but more likely in the mood for a bottle of Champagne just to finish a great dinner in style.

Now, your dual-zone wine fridge in the kitchen is ready to accommodate your spontaneous desire for a glass of fizz at the perfect temperature. See the point? We’d bet you do. 

What is the best under counter wine cooler?

Based on our experience and popularity among customers, we recommend the following wine coolers:

1. Pevino EVO 46 Dual zone

2. Pevino EVO 46 Single zone

Under counter wine fridge with lock

If you want to secure and lock away your cherished wines, you will have to make sure that your new wine fridge comes with a locking mechanism.

Most of our wine fridges comes with a lock, but not all. However, all PeVino and EuroCave Compact undercounter wine coolers comes with lock.

Best thermoelectric undercounter wine cooler

Thermoelectric wine coolers are a popular choice because of their low noise emission. We get a lot of questions about the “best thermoelectric undercounter wine cooler”. However, we do not recommend having your thermoelectric wine cooler be built-in.

Can a thermoelectric wine cooler fridge be installed under a kitchen counter? 

Besides a low noise emission, a thermoelectric wine cooler often has a harder time cooling and getting rid of the hot air.

This is not an ideal combination when building the wine fridge in between the kitchen cabinets, where the space is tight, and the air ventilation is virtually absent.

How to install an under counter wine cooler

First of all, make sure that the measurements are precise and correct. Dimensions is everything when installing a wine fridge in the kitchen. Then make sure that the dimensions of your kitchen cabinets correspond with those of the wine cooler, you are looking at.

Make sure that there is space for the doors to open. This is a classic mistake among people nuying a wine cooler before verifying the space under the counter in their home.

Under counter wine cooler stainless steel

Primarily there are wine coolers for under counter in black glass finish. But recently undercounter wine fridges also come with a stainless steel front door. The modern style of kitchen appliances with a semi-industrial look is ideal to install a wine refrigerator with steel look. An excellent example are the cool looking wine fridges from Pevino. 

Eurocave undercounter wine coolers

The inventor of the wine refrigerator and producer of the most respected and revered brand of wine coolers, French EuroCave make the best wine coolers available.

The two series Inspiration and Compact from EuroCave are designed specifically for built-in or fully integrated.

We can highly recommend considering EuroCave, but we cannot offer them to our EU-clients. Only via our Scandinavian websites in Norway, Sweden or Denmark is it possible to buy EuroCave. 

Guide - how to choose a wine cooler fridge

If you want some great advice on how to pick a wine cooler, you should read this article, where we will guide you throug the many things to consider.