Avoid problems with your wine cooler in the summer heat

Worried that your wine cooler can't handle the heat of summer?

Fortunately, there is something you can do yourself to ensure you have cool wine all summer long. First and foremost, it’s about the location of the wine cooler and giving it space to “breathe”.

Generally speaking, there are three different ways to place your wine cooler:

A freestanding wine cooler is intended to be freestanding on the floor, in the living room or kitchen, and is not suitable for building-in. Giving your freestanding wine cooler 2–3 cm clearance at the back and at the sides will allow you to disperse the hot air and cool down your wine inside the cabinet. A freestanding wine cooler that is built-in will quickly "suffocate" and break down, as it cannot get rid of the excess hot air.

A built-in wine cooler typically has the same width as a regular kitchen module (60 cm). This means you can pull out a kitchen unit and insert a wine cooler instead. You probably already know the concept from under-the-countertop dishwashers. A built-in wine cooler must be able to disperse heat at its bottom. This is typically done by means of a grate that sucks cool air into the compressor on one side and then blows out again on the other side. Since the wine cooler is built-in, the grate at its bottom will be its only option for breathing, and it is therefore important to ensure space for this, e.g., at the base.

An integrated wine cooler usually fits directly into a kitchen module. This means that—unlike a built-in model—it does not replace a kitchen unit, but fits into an existing module. The door of an integrated wine cooler is the same width as the kitchen module, while the rest of the wine cooler is slightly narrower to fit into the kitchen module. The integrated wine cooler also needs air, which will typically be done via a grille at the bottom of the kitchen cabinet that sucks in cool air. To get rid of the excess hot air, the top of the kitchen cupboard must make it possible for the heat to escape. For this purpose, many people choose not to have a top on the kitchen cabinet, but you can also just instal a grate or cut a hole in the top of the cabinet top.

Give your wine cooler room to breathe and it will give you perfectly temperture-controlled wine for the rest of the summer (and for years to come) 😉🍷