Rethinking the Wine Cooler

With the warm weather in full force, you have probably slowed down on opening up those bottles of red on your wine rack and moved toward the more patio friendly whites that have been hibernating through the winter. In fact, it’s likely you have already been through your seasonal shuffle of prioritizing the wine rack and refrigerator space. With new innovations in the wine cooler industry, that seasonal shuffle may no longer be necessary.

According to the State of the Wine Industry 2018, report consumers are becoming more wary of restaurant markups on wine and other alcohol. This has lead to an increase in consumers preferring to drink at home rather than at the restaurant or bar. Some of the more popular varietals are Cabernet Sauvignon and Red Blends, while younger adults are drinking French Rosé and Italian Pinot Grigio. With so many different preferences and the rise in drinking at home, it can be tough to make sure that you always have the right bottle ready for you and any guests. This change in consumer behavior has subsequently caused the wine cooler refrigerator market to grow as well.

The wine cooler refrigerator market used to be focused on restaurants and very serious collectors. With wines growing in popularity and recent innovations within the category, the market is moving closer to the everyday consumer. Wine coolers are considered one of the most ideal ways of storing all different kinds of wine. They allow you to set your collection at the appropriate temperature and humidity required for optimal storage.. However, each type of wine has its own ideal temperature and humidity levels for storage.  This makes these traditional wine coolers unrealistic for the regular consumer. Most cannot afford to have a different cooler for each type of wine in their collection let alone enough wine to fill each one.

Today, wine coolers are being developed with multiple storage zones so that owners can store both whites and reds in the same refrigerator. According to Radiant Insights, this innovation along with other factors are why the wine cooler market is expected to make substantial growth over the coming years. With multiple storage zones, the consumer who prefers to drink at home does not need to plan ahead on which bottle of wine should be stored properly. Instead, he or she can have multiple varieties all stored in the same place, each at their ideal temperature and humidity.

Proper storage is an important aspect of so many things we come in contact with on a daily basis. The innovation of multiple storage zones makes sure that the bottle of wine waiting to help us unwind at the end of the day is being taken care of correctly.