I have a small cooler (54 btls). I also have a wine rack that’s integrated with the kitchen cabinets that holds 12 btls.

My everyday, drink a bottle with dinner wines that I intend to drink within a few weeks go into the cabinet. These bottles are generally bottles that I pick up at the store when I’m ‘experimenting’ and looking for a good discovery under $15. These bottles are actually my favorites, because I’m not pissed off if they taste like crap (due to the price), but sometimes I find really good inexpensive bottles. Contrary to popular belief, wine does not have to be expensive to be wonderful, including cabs and pinot’s.

Then there are some bottles that I buy that are more expensive, but come with good ratings / reviews or someone recommended. These bottles I enjoy saving for special occasions when my wine drinking friends come over. I have a few friends that enjoy wine as much as I do, and we all get together and share a few bottles of the “good stuff”. These particular bottles usually come with a recommendation to let age for a particular amount of time. For example, I’ve got some 93 cabs left in the cooler that are ready to drink now. I’ve also got some 97’s and 95’s that need to be drunk this year. Then there’s some great 2000’s that I’m waiting for a couple more years to drink.

All the babbling aside, anything I intend to drink within 8 weeks stays out of the cooler, all others go into the cooler. So if you just want to wait until next summer to drink some of yours, go ahead and put them in the fridge for a few months.

For temp, I just set the cooler to 55 deg F. The temp sensor is in the middle of the cooler. It’s about 53 deg F at the bottom and 57 deg F at the top. I put the whites in the bottom, and cabs at the top. Pino’s, shara’s, zin’s go in the middle.

When I drink a bottle of red that’s been in the cooler for a spell, I use a decanter and let it breath for about a half an hour. By then it’s just the right temp and ready to be drank.

Whites, I don’t really care. I’m not a white wine drinker. Hey all pretty much taste like cool-aid to me.