Ivation Counter Top Wine Cellar
Last updated: December 31, 2020
This cooler chills both red and white wines for the perfect sip every time. It offers comfortable storage for up to 18 bottles. Techie features, like anti-vibration components and UV-blocking glass, round out this must-have cooler.
We looked at the top Wine Refrigerators and dug through the reviews from some of the most popular review sites. Through this analysis, we've determined the best Wine Fridge you should buy.
Product Details
Key Takeaway: The Ivation Counter Top Wine Cellar is a large cooler with innovative features.
In our analysis of 126 expert reviews, the Ivation Counter Top Wine Cellar placed 11th when we looked at the top 19 products in the category. For the full ranking, see below.From The Manufacturer
The Ivation Wine Cooler keeps your wine at the correct & consistent temperature and stable environment, protecting the wine from exterior lights and elements, and is specially built to have zero vibration, so the wine could be aged and stored properly, enabling it to preserve and develop its delicious flavor, Color and Aroma, with the best possible mouthfeel, body, palette and finish, serving you the best and tastiest wine that is Full, Rich, Supple, Smooth, Round, and Balanced. A Must Have for Wine Lovers and Collectors. The only way to properly protect your wine is to store them in the Ivation temperature-controlled beautifully designed wine cooler, even for short term storage. Serving temperature has a big effect on how a wine smells, tastes and feels in your mouth, even a very good wine can be awful at the wrong temperature, likewise improper temperature can also shorten the wine’s life or ruin the wine completely, Regular refrigerators are not an option, as they are too cold for most wines, and “Room temperature” is too warm.
Our Expert Consultant
Julie Chernoff
Culinary Expert
Culinary Expert
Julie Chernoff is a long-time member of Les Dames d’Escoffier (past president of the Chicago Chapter, and current co-chair of the LDEI Legacy Awards Committee), the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ) and the International Association of Culinary Professionals.
Chernoff is the dining editor of Better, a lifestyle website and print magazine. Her journalism started in the test kitchens of Weight Watchers Magazine. She holds a BA in English from Yale University and is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy. She has spent the last few decades styling, photographing, teaching, developing recipes, editing, thinking and writing about food.
Expert Reviews
What reviewers liked
As the name suggests, Ivation wine coolers offers dual functionality. You don’t need to buy two separate wine coolers for white and red wines. This wine cooler is larger in size and costlier in price as compared to the earlier one. You can store 18 bottles comfortably. You can also customize the temperature from 54ºF to 64ºF. There are six slots and each of them has a space of 3 bottles. The glass door is tempered smoked, so it prevents the interior temperature to come into the contact with the outside environment.
Why you'll love it: The Ivation 18 Bottle Thermoelectric Red and White Wine Cooler maintains accurate temperatures without making a lot of noise. The smoked-glass door of the Ivation 18 Bottle Thermoelectric Red and White Wine Cooler offers a unique, attractive look while blocking UV rays, which can affect the flavor of complex wines. This single-zone fridge keeps temperatures between 54 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit. And, for proper aging and settling, it is outfitted with anti-vibration components. The cellar has a bright blue LCD digital temperature display and interior LED lighting. We were unable to track down warranty information, but Ivation states that they have a "100% customer satisfaction guarantee."
The 18-bottle Ivation IV-FWCT181B is well-built and virtually silent. It can handle tall and odd-shaped bottles, and it keeps all your bottles at a steady temperature, hardly fluctuating more than half a degree Fahrenheit from the digital thermostat. Although the racks feel a bit loose in their runners—as is the case with most freestanding wine fridges—they’re sturdy and will securely hold your wine collection. It’s also easy to operate, relatively compact for its capacity, and fairly well-reviewed online, suggesting it has few long-term reliability issues.
On the lowest end of the price range, Amazon’s best-selling 18-bottle unit fits easily into tighter spaces (hello, New York City apartments), although it works best as a freestanding rather than built-in unit in order to ventilate properly. A smoked glass design is easy to match with any style of decor, and the digital touch controls allow you set your ideal temperature.
Made of smoked tempered glass, the door will protect your wines from UV rays that otherwise could destroy its taste and flavor.
The Ivation Wine Cooler keeps your wine at the correct and consistent temperature and stable environment, protecting the wine from exterior lights and elements, and is specially built to have zero vibration, so the wine could be aged and stored properly, enabling wine to preserve and develop its delicious flavor, Color and Aroma, with the best possible mouth-feel, body, palate and finish, serving you the best and tastiest wine that is Full, Rich, Supple, Smooth, Round, and Balanced and Ivation 18 Bottle Thermoelectric does it all. The only way to properly protect your wine is to store your wine in the Aviation temperature–controlled beautifully designed wine cooler, even for short term storage.
This wine chiller is one of the good ones present in the market. Wine is to be stored in palatable environment and this free standing chiller or wine fridge is good at preserving both your red wine as well as white wine. It is optimum choice to store wine bottles to preserve their taste and flavors for long time. The perfect stability of temperature is one of its good features. It allows you to store wines for long and short period of time in a consistent ethos where the ageing process of your wine will be ideally continued without any effect on its rich flavors.
The LCD display, LED buttons and lights all result in the perfect wine cooler according to many – and a must-have unit for your home. When it comes to protection of the quality and taste of your wines, this wine chiller excels – delivering consistent temperatures that are stable. Furthermore, it boasts with the right sensors the optimize the humidity and minimal light entering the cooler.
The Ivation 18 jar cooler is really actually a wine fridge that runs on thermoelectric strength and provides high-quality results for wine lovers all around the nation. Built to safeguard wine and also help out with aging with a steady temperatures, it’s really a great pick for anybody who would love a wine cellar, but doesn’t always have space. This is authorized with an adjustable temperature range that keeps the perfect ambiance for many types of wines and is adjustable to suit you.Furthermore, the thermoelectricity ensures no vibrations and also no noise, so you may keep it anywhere you like without worrying about noise diversion. The glass door blocks out ultra violet rays, that may further guarantee that the wine remains intact.
Storing wine can be tricky business. That is why you need a good wine cooler. This 18- bottle unit will at the right constant temperature, between 54 and 64 degrees F. The easy touch control panel gives you control over your wine’s storage temperature.
- DTOPLIST
Cooler runs quietly. Has a sleek, stylish appearance that blends in well with most decor. Relatively compact and easy to tuck away without being intrusive. Maintains its temperature regardless of how many or few bottles are inside.
A freestanding 18 bottle cellar that takes standard 750 ml bottles. Has a temperature range of 54°F to 64°F. Its cooling system is non-compressor thermoelectric for vibration-free storage. Insulated with CFC-free insulation, the smoked glass dual pane door protects wine from light and external temperature variation. Comes with a one year limited warranty from the manufacturer.
The Ivations cooler allows you to store your wines in predictable, stable temperatures over the short and long term, and allows you to set the temperature to a temperature that provides the perfect atmosphere for the aging process of your wines. Uniquely engineered with an energy-efficient thermoelectric cooling frame with no fans to minimize vibration and vibration, allowing your wine to age and settle properly without causing any disruption to the commonly occurring residue.
The ultra-quiet, no-vibration cooling system isn’t the only thing this cooler can brag about. In fact, the list of praiseworthy qualities this thing has could allow you to get through even the most awkward dinner party without batting an eye – you could seriously talk about this thing all night long. First, you could start by talking about its humidity control. Because, what’s a great wine cooler without humidity control? The ability to keep things at exactly the right level of humidity allows you to keep your wine even more perfect than the day it was corked. After all, a good red wine is always a little aged, is it not? However, you don’t want it to breathe and breathe the entire time it’s in there; therefore it’s important to keep the cork moist enough that too much air won’t find its way into the bottle. And how does one keep a cork from drying out? By controlling the humidity level, of course!
This cooler protects your wine’s quality and taste for the long term too. The ideal temperature for the wines aging process is ranging from 12ºc to 18ºC. This wine cooler is best for this maintaining desired range temperature to preserve your wine for a long period. This cooler is fully insulated with solid polyurethane CFC free heavy foam and closed with tempered smoked thermopane doors which gives odor-free environment and maintained particular humidity. It also prevents more air to come into contact with the wine which leads to keeping cork from drying out. Due to the darkness, it has ability to blocking out sunlight and harmful UV rays.To minimize the vibration effect and noise this unit is designed with energy efficient thermo-electric cooling system without the compressor. This wine cooler is also featured by Touch controls and LCD display and Soft interior lighting with on/off control for convenient use.
A wine cooler with the ability to cool two different types of wine is like aiming two targets with one arrow. This wine cooler is from Ivation which can store 18 bottles and it is capable of cooling red and white wine at the same time. Even though it is a best single zone wine cooler, it has the feature to maintain temperature for both types. All the bottles will be stored in a horizontal position and you can have a clear look at all the bottles inside. The design is simple and there are capacitive touch buttons on the top to adjust temperature and other things.
What reviewers didn't like
Doesn't function well when ambient temp is above 72 degrees.
As with all but one of the models we tested, you’ll need to remove one of the shelves to fit a 1½-liter magnum bottle. It will fit a tall riesling bottle, too.
There is little space between the shelves.
Not a dual temperature cooler, so may not chill both reds and whites as effectively together.
The manufacturer’s customer service may be less than satisfactory. May arrive with some cosmetic damage to the exterior. If you prefer white/rose’s served at lower temperatures, this cooler may not have a low enough temperature. Temperature may also fluctuate when in use.
You should be aware of the one downside I did find for this unit – its temperature range. Since I do enjoy a nice, crisp white wine or a sweet, succulent dessert wine from time to time, I was disappointed to see that those who enjoy these wines often would not be able to make use of this cooler. Its range, from 54 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit makes it perfect for red wine lovers, but not for those who enjoy white and dessert wines.
Comes at bit expensive price point as compared to the others. Not best to preserve red and white wine together for a long time.
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