White wines are best served at a temperature somewhere between 7-11°C, depending on the grape variety (or varieties) that the wine has been made from. The lower temperature helps accentuate the acidity, enhancing the freshness and crispness associated with a really good white. But only the most expensive wine coolers will have the full spread of features that control these elements. This type of issue is most common is fridges running using a compressor which has thermostat issues sometimes White wines also have higher volumes of organic compounds, such as aldehydes and terpenes, which at lower temperatures can fill the head of the glass with the fruity aromas that can improve your wine drinking experience. Yet the motor is far from efficient at a B energy rating, and doesn’t allow the cabinet to get any cooler than 12ºC. That’s fine for red wines, but way too warm for our white wine tastes.

Those figures tie up well with the energy label’s claimed 182kWh per annum. To put that into perspective, we’ve tested fridge freezers that use that sort of electricity over a year. So for the BW28BL’s compact 65-litre storage capacity and woeful high-lowest temperature, that’s seriously poor. So much for heat pump technology then. Though more expensive, a dual-temperature-zone model gives you greater flexibility. It means you can have a section for ready-to-serve white wine, and another for either storage or ready-to serve red wine. Triple-temperature zone The humidity in a fridge is also too low, which overtime can result in a dried out cork. Add to that the potential risk of strong odours from leftover food affecting your wine, and it becomes clear why it's really not an ideal solution for wine storage.Theoretically, the interior of the cabinet is illuminated by a switchable on/off LED light. However, the one tiny, old-tech dome LED in the top right of the compartment has all the illuminating power of a candle. A small birthday cake candle at that. This is a picture of the BW28BL in the dark with the door open… The thermostat itself is a tiny rotary knob with markings for high and low. If you want a precise temperature you’ll need a fridge thermostat and some trial and error. However, we did find that on the high setting the BW28BL hit around 11-12ºC and 18-19ºC on the low. It was a fairly linear progression in between, so you could have a good guess. Humidity controls: if a wine is exposed to low levels of humidity for an extended period it can dry out the cork. This can allow air into the bottle, which can ruin your wine. Humidity controls allow you to manage the amount of moisture in the air inside the wine cooler, helping to ensure the integrity of the cork. The thermostat also allows you to control and adjust the temperature of the wine cooler so if the reading on thermostat is inaccurate (or flat out wrong) the wine cooler temperature will likely be inaccurate too. Wine coolers range from 15cm to 70cm in width. But most models tend to be around 60cm wide. Freestanding wine coolers

If the thermostat is defective it's likely to cause a warm cabinet or in rarer cases cause the wine cooler to freeze! Which is also less than ideal for your wine collectionIf you are just using your wine cooler for storage – assuming it has the additional features required to safely enable this – then again a single-zone model will be fine. Dual-temperature zone Possibly, but not for too long. Wine is a fragile, sensitive drink that can be severely impaired by exposure to the wrong conditions, and the temperature in a standard fridge is far too cold for storing white wines for very long. Plus, not only is the temperature inside a refrigerator too cold for wine storage, it's also way below the ideal serving temperature. So even if you do keep a bottle of white in the fridge ready for immediate consumption, you'd do best to take it out a little bit before serving to give it time to warm up properly. The BW28BL wine cooler offers a solid 28 bottle capacity in a neat and compact cabinet. The extra capacity is thanks to the vibration-free thermoelectric heat pump motor. Internal temperature is consistent throughout the cabinet and super-stable, resulting in a very good red wine conditioning environment. Only better air filtration could improve conditions further.