Commercial Wine Fridges and Commercial Wine Coolers

What are Commercial Wine Fridges?

Commercial wine fridges are used in bars, restaurants, offices and board rooms to keep wine at the optimum temperature for service or storage. Any hospitality business that sells wine, by the bottle or by the glass, needs a wine fridge. To find out which commercial wine fridge is best for your bar or restaurant; read on.

Commercial wine fridges in restaurants and large bars tend to be freestanding with dual zone controls for the service of both red and white wine or for selling bottles directly to the public at storage or service temperature. 

Smaller bars generally only have room for a small freestanding or undercounter wine cooler or even a tabletop wine cooler if only a few bottles are kept; needed for serving by the glass.

As restaurant and bar interiors are generally stylised, the aesthetics of the wine cabinets are usually important with display shelves, mahogany wood, smart LED lighting and the choice of black or stainless steel wine coolers frequent requests.

Another important feature, especially for a restaurant or bar selling mature/ fine wines, is that the wine fridge is lockable. Commercial locations are public facing and the ability to lock the wine cabinet is important.

The most requested feature for commercial wine coolers though is that they accurately hold set temperatures. Service temperature of Champagne is often particularly important, so too White Burgundy, so it's important you can rely on the quality and accuracy of the brand and the fridge.

Commercial wine coolers are opened and utilised with much greater frequency than a home wine fridge so it's important the build is solid and reliable and the mechanical parts of the fridge are efficient at bringing the fridge to temperature quickly.

Some brands are designed with commercial settings in mind, we highly recommend Swisscave wine fridges and EuroCave wine fridges for reliability, durability and aesthetics, and we have installed these units at the Savoy Hotel in London, several locations of the Gordon Ramsay chain and the Four Seasons Hotel in Knightsbridge.

What’s the difference between a built in/integrated and freestanding commercial wine fridge?

Commercial wine coolers come in many sizes, from tabletop wine fridges for small bars to 300 bottle capacity, man sized, wine cabinets with multi temperature zones.

No different to a home setting, the installation and location (allocated space) for your commercial wine fridge will dictate the type of unit you'll buy, the three types of commercial wine fridges are freestanding wine fridges, built-in wine fridges and integrated wine fridges.

Freestanding wine coolers need at least 2-3 inches of space around their sides for ventilation and 30cm above so cannot be built into cabinetry. Built-in wine fridges can be built-in to cabinetry and vent from a front, bottom panel that must be kept clear. Integrated wine fridges are generally raised off the floor and built directly into a kitchen, like an integrated oven, for example. Whether you need a commercial wine cooler for an office, restaurant or bar, you'll need to be sure that the ventilation of the wine fridge matches the space allocated for it.

Why choose a commercial wine fridge?

Security and functionality - before anything else a commercial wine fridge must be secure with a lockable door and accurately keep its programmed temperature. All commercial wine coolers have alarms that will alert their owner to issues with temperature regulation.

Durability - The doors on commercial wine fridges are open and shut many times a day in busy restaurants. These fridges need to have a solid casing, be easy to open and close, telescopic shelves are also an advantage so wait staff can access bottles quickly and easily.

Temperature Zones - Most commercial wine fridges are dual zone to allow for the service of red and white wine plus Champagne. It is quite common for larger restaurants to dedicate a single zone tall unit to reds and then another tall dual zone wine cabinet split by white wine and Champagne.

Style - All of our commercial wine fridges are from premium brands and look great, however some brands go the extra mile in the style stakes with colour-changing LED lighting, mahogany wood shelving, display shelves and stainless steel casing. If your wine bar or restaurant is up market with a bespoke design, it's likely you'll want to choose a fridge whose style and quality is in-keeping with the rest of the interiors.

What features should I look for in a commercial wine fridge?

Commercial wine fridges have very specific usage needs and always should be safe, secure, robust and hold their temperatures perfectly for wine service. Restaurant or bar owners should consider whether they need:

• Single, Dual or Multi Temperature Zones
• Alarm systems to notify of temperature dips
• Winter System - Ideal if you wish to place your wine cabinet in a colder room
• Lighting on/off or changing coloured LED lights
• MIX shelving systems and space for Champagne bottles to make it easy for sommeliers to use the wine fridge.
• Carbon filters - you will find these in wine coolers with the potential to age wines
• UV protected doors - all units will feature UV protected doors to prevent your wine from sunlight damage

Considerations when choosing a commercial wine fridge?

Every business owner has different needs and considerations when choosing a commercial wine fridge. It's important to consider:

• The space you can allocate to your wine fridge in your bar or restaurant and how easily staff can access the fridges
  
• The number of bottles you need to store/serve
  
• Is this wine fridge for storage or service or both - how many zones do you need?
• The budget you can allocate to wine storage at your restaurant or bar
  
• Safety - is a lock needed?
• Can sommeliers access the wines quickly and easily, would full stack shelving help?
• The long term running and maintenance costs of the wine fridge
  
• How might the businesses wine collection evolve over time
  
• What shape and size are your bottles, what type of shelving will you need.

Which are the best brands for commercial wine fridges?

The highest premium brands for commercial wine fridges are EuroCave and Swisscave, followed closely by Liebherr and Dunavox. Other high quality brands include Dometic, Climadiff and La Sommeliere. Vestfrost is an affordable brand with high quality engineering along with mQuvee and these make excellent choices for under-counter commercial wine fridges.

All of these brands come with at least 2 years warranty and fast delivery.

There are also freestanding wine walls, these can offer great narrow depth for those with special space requirements.

How to install a commercial wine fridge?

Commercial wine fridge installation is no different to domestic use however it is worth considering ease of access and what side the door should open in a busy bar or restaurant.

Most bars or restaurants employ freestanding wine fridges around their property but built-in wine fridges can also look great alongside the internal decor.

Freestanding wine fridges can be placed anywhere in a bar or restaurant as long as they have 2-3 inches on either side to vent and nothing is placed on top of them.