Cuisinart Private Reserve 6 Bottle Wine Cellar  Product Reviews

"I bought this product hoping to be able to help preserve some of my better wines during the warm summer months. According to the insert with the product, if the room temperature is 77 then you can't do better than 54 in the wine cellar. My house temps usually run around 78+ through the summer, so this unit won't even make the 54 setting or the 57. I have it set at 64 and it continuously cycles on an off (every 30 seconds or so) with a fan that's very obnoxious and not at all quiet as advertised. On the insert and in bold letters they state "This is a wine cellar, not a refrigerator." I'm not so sure I would even call it a 'wine cellar'...more of an energy gulper (approx. 100 watts according to the user guide.) "

"Pros: 1) It works quite well - keeps a very even temperature, which I think is the only thing more important than keeping a wine cool to preserve it (the juice "breathes" through the cork, and thermal expansion, either up or down messes with the chemistry more than anything.) 2) It actually holds 8 bottles stacked if you remove the two top racks. 3) Looks very well-made, the digital temp (in degrees F or C) is great. 4) Very easy to use. Cons: 1) Smelled terrible: like Bondo or fingernail polish at first. Because of the "breathing" mentioned above, I recommend leaving it open out on the back porch for a few days before using it, and then with a bag of activated charcoal in it for a while (baking soda didn't help.) 2) It's loud - maybe as loud as a regular refigerator running. The heat-sink fans on the back sound like a suped-up computer system, but they go on an off every few seconds, apparently precisely adjusting the interior temperature. If the fans would stay on constantly, at least you could get used to it. 3) If the power goes off, it resets to 45 degrees - which is way too cold and negates the benefit of Pro number 1. The last thing you want is a slowly-warming bottle going from 65 to 70 in a few hours to then be quickly chilled to 45 - I can just see the cork sliding back and forth like a piston on an antique locomotive. If they packed it with a bag of charcoal, had a quieter fan that you could set to be on-continuously, and used non-volatile memory for the temperature setting, it would get 5 stars."

"This is a great size for a vacation cottage or to fit a smaller space. It's sophisticated enough to set different temperatures for the different wines. It has an interior light and a circulating fan. The instruction booklet gives you the 8 settings it has for various wines. The wine cellar looks good, so you could have it wherever you need your wine for meals or entertaining. Although it is quieter than other beverage coolers and small refrigerators that we've had, it still hums quite frequently. We had to move it away from our dining room so it wouldn't annoy us. "