What’s the best wine cellar cooling system for 2019-2020?
Summit Wine Cellars carries cutting-edge wine cellar climate control systems. The question is what type of system you need, and that depends on the size and conditions of your wine cellar or other dedicated space for storing and aging a collection of fine wines.
In this post, we’ll break down the most common types of climate control systems for wine, as well as taking note of wine cooling system design innovations that can make your wine cellar design even more beautiful.
The #1 Choice in Wine Cellar Cooling Systems
The term wine cellar design most commonly refers to spacious wine cellars created in a dedicated space in a fine home. These are the wine cellars you see in gorgeous photos posted to Facebook, Instagram, and other social media—the cellars where expert design like that provided by Fred Tregaskis and Summit Wine Cellars will show off envy-producing bottles to maximum effect, while ensuring perfect climate control for aging.
A ducted split system is the best and most common climate control system for these wine cellars. It offers the most flexibility, and both Wine Guardian and WhisperKOOL make ducted split systems in different sizes that are tailor-fitted for your unique wine cellar.
How A Ducted Split System Works
There are two pieces to the system, an evaporator or air handler, and a condensing unit. These two pieces are connected by a liquid line and an insulated suction line.
In a ducted split system, the condenser—noisier than the evaporator because it is exhausting the warm air from the wine cellar—is usually placed outside the wine cellar. The condenser can be up to 100 feet away from the evaporator, which is placed closer to the wine cellar. A ducting system delivers the cool air into the cellar—at a maximum of 25 feet—with the cool air entering at the top of the cellar and the warm air ducted back out at the bottom of the cellar.
“The split system is nice because the heat and the noise are put in a remote location,” Fred Tregaskis says.
Other Top Choice: Self-Contained Ducted Cooling System
The other top climate control choice for a bespoke wine cellar is a self-contained ducted wine cellar cooling system that combines the compressor and evaporator within the same housing.
These units are typically fairly large and best placed outside of the wine cellar. A mechanical room or nearby storage room is ideal. A self-contained ducted system brings cool air to the wine cellar, while warm air is returned through a duct to a location up to 25 feet away from the cooling unit. You get a quiet wine cellar with no sign of the equipment and no space being taken up by cooling equipment.
“We do more high-end design, so it’s either self-contained ducted or split-system ducted when it comes to the best wine cellar cooling system for 2019-2020,” says Tregaskis, who’s excited about cooling system features that allow him to offer clients liberating and beautiful design flourishes.
“You can incorporate the grills right into the design,” he explains, describing how the end-point elements of the cooling system in the wine cellar that flow in the cool air can essentially be hidden as horizontal grooves in the molding, or vertical slots in the pillars. “So you can disguise it that way,” Tregaskis says. “It’s a little more work and a little more money but worth it.”
“They’ve recently come out with ceiling-mounted evaporators in the split system, designed to fit between the joists, and you run lines out to compressor in remote location. That’s a pretty sophisticated cooling system,” he adds, noting that while ducted split systems and self-contained ducted systems are the best choice for most wine cellars, Summit Cool Cellars also offers systems tailored to the specs of any size or type of cellar, including self-contained systems and through-the-wall systems.
“The approach is dictated by what’s best for the particular wine storage conditions,” says Tregaskis.
Whatever the conditions, and whatever the right setup, the best wine cellar cooling system for 2019-2020 is one manufactured by either Wine Guardian or WhisperKOOL, the two premier names for wine cellar climate control.
Wine Guardian
Wine Guardian brands itself as “the wine cellar temperature experts, and says on its website, “We’ve been building ducted wine cellar cooling systems longer than any other manufacturer. Our systems are the quietest and the most energy efficient available anywhere in the world. Not to mention, we have more capacities in more styles, including the two largest models in ducted systems. And if you need options in sophisticated controls, remote monitoring, or humidification, we lead the way there too. In fact, the only thing greater than our breadth of options in wine storage is the depth of our knowledge and expertise.”
Wine Guardian products are made in the U.S., and the company is a division of Air Innovations, which engineers and manufactures environmental control systems for industries that include aerospace, the military, and pharmaceutical companies.
“When you buy a Wine Guardian system, you can rest assured that your wine preservation system equipment has been designed with the most advanced concepts in temperature, humidity, and controls, while being built with highest quality and commercial grade components,” the website says.
WhisperKOOL
“When you choose WhisperKOOL, you can rest assured that your wine is being protected by the brand name in wine cooling,” WhisperKOOL says in a recent Facebook post. “Our commitment to continuous improvement drives us to source the best materials to manufacture state-of-the-art cooling systems that deliver the perfect glass of wine on-demand. Click the provided link to see why wine enthusiasts around the world trust their wine collection with WhisperKOOL.”
About Summit Cool Cellars
Summit Cool Cellars is a division of Summit Wine Cellars, LLC, (https://summit-cellars.com). Summit owner/designer Fred Tregaskis creates dramatic custom wine cellars for clients throughout the world. Summit has a dedicated manufacturing facility in Connecticut, where expert craftsmen fabricate all the components—in wood, metal, glass and other materials. Those bespoke components of each unique cellar are shipped to each location and assembled there by Summit Wine Cellars, before the final flourishes and finishing touches are added.
To learn more about Summit Wine Cellars, LLC and the wine cellar design process, contact Summit Wine Cellars by email at info@summit-cellars.com, or by phone at 203-916-1664. Make sure to see the Portfolio page for examples of Summit’s traditional and modern wine cellar design.
