If you are like most Americans, you purchase a bottle of wine with the idea of drinking it in a short period of time from the purchase and you are not looking to store it in one of your under counter wine coolers. For those that do collect bottles of wine either for the special occasions or for the fun of collecting wine, under counter wine coolers are a great addition to your kitchen or home bar area.

As with any hobby, collecting wine can be an expensive hobby if you want it to be. Thus, you need to protect your investment or bottles of wine so they maintain their value as well as the integrity of the wine itself. This would be where under counter wine coolers enter the picture.

Depending on the type of wine you are collecting, some wines are more sensitive than others about such factors as temperature, exposure to UV light, unsettling of sediments and cork shrinkage. Although, collecting wine sounds complicated and more importantly expensive, you can find very effective under counter wine coolers from Magic Chef. Of course the pricing of the under counter wine coolers will depend on how many bottles you will be storing in the unit.

When making the purchase, keep in mind we tend to keep more bottles than we think and usually for not much more you can have a larger unit that will give you ample space for your collection. Many collectors underestimate the amount of wine they actually collect, often needing two to three times the space they planned for. Capacity listings on individual models are gross capacities--you may have to do some creative arranging to actually fill your cooler to capacity. Larger or smaller than normal bottles will also alter net capacity. Also be sure to check the shelving options of the under counter wine coolers that you are comparing. You will have more options with removable shelves to store your investments.

Are you going to collect red wine, white wine or both? This is an important question to ask as you are looking at under counter wine coolers as they need to be stored at different temperatures. Many manufacturers offer units that have temperature controls. These units will keep one side of the unit a perfect temperature for red wines and the other side of eth unit perfect for white wines.

Under counter coolers are made to match many different decorating styles and personalities. In addition, the look will also be determined where the unit is placed.

Many under counter wine coolers can also be free standing units. This gives you the flexibility to use them in your kitchen, home bar, outdoor kitchen or even your basement. You will also want to look into the security features of the unit as well. A lock and key system come with most units to help you keep the kids or your friends honest.

To enjoy your wine collection for years to come, be sure that what you buy at protects your collection from temperature extremes, vibration, too much or too little humidity, light and air.