Customer Reviews for Vinotemp 440-Bottle Garage Wine Cellar

I've had this unit for about 6 months and I'm so-so pleased with it. I have it in my garage and made sure to keep well away from the back wall. Yes, the compressor runs quite a bit but I expected this. The insulation could have been better. I purchased a separate temperature monitor unit with remote reading capabilities and it seems to be holding between 54-57 degrees with my bottle probe a pretty steady 55. The problem I am having now is that the more wine I put in it (about 250+ bottles now) the more it seems to shift shape making the doors out of alignment and adding to the insulation problem. Don't know what to do about this.

I can't rate features, efficiency or quality, but after a couple of months the cellar has been working exactly as expected. It is noisy, but it is in a garage. What I can rate is value and there is no way I could build a cellar as good as this for twice as much money. While bad units are possible, and maybe I haven't had mine long enough, I suspect those who have had trouble may not have followed directions. Leveling seems to be critical and it took me a long time to get it right. I also had to tweak the temperature sensor to get accurate readings, but this is all spelled out in the manual. Once set up it will turn on at around 58-59° and turn off at 55°. That puts the average temperature around 57° or so, but it seems to spend more time at the lower temperature. Since my former cellar was underground and could fluctuate over 15 degrees or so, I don't think I can ask for anything more. The bins are two bottles deep and seem to be entirely adequate. I had to develop a new spreadsheet to track inventory, specifying if a bottle was at the front or rear. I also had to label rows and columns. It would be nice if labeling were done for you, but it certainly isn't critical..

I have this Vinotemp cellar. You don't have to look very far to read many bad reviews of this, most deserved. However, with a little work to overcome the exceptionally shoddy work, this cellar might be good for you. The bad: it is ugly, loud, made with low quality materials, and, as you can read many places, runs far too much of the time. The good: You can fix it with minimal skills and effort. Then it will be reasonably functional, but never particularly attractive or quiet. At this price point there are no reasonable alternatives, so..... Why does it run so much? Lack of a lot of insulation and generally poor seals on the doors are part of the picture, compounded by the temperature of the space in which you keep it and the amount of space between the unit and the walls and ceiling because of the location of the vents. The more space the better. Why do most of their photos show it close to walls and often in rooms with low ceilings since both of these are contraindicated in their manual? Hmmmm... The real issue that I saw on mine and others with this unit was that the cooling unit is very poorly sealed and much of the cooling capacity is lost. This requires the unit to run seemingly incessantly. After the cooling unit in mine seemed to be on the verge of burning out, was intermittently freezing up, and was throwing some oil out of one of the vent fans, I gave up the ghost and purchased a new cooling unit from an internet vendor. Along with a friend, the cooling unit was removed. At this point we discovered that there was very little foam rubber sealing used to seal off the unit from the outside. The cooling unit was also installed ever so slightly canted to the front rather than the rear, preventing water from condensation from evaporating, instead collecting in the cooling unit. This was compounded by air leaks. Once the new cooling unit was installed with the correct slight rearward cant and a good deal of butyl sealant to make sure there were no air leaks, the cellar ran relatively infrequently to keep the correct temperature. As a plus, I had to unload only about 20 bottles of wine, leaving the rest in the cellar. My conclusion: If your unit seems to run too frequently and/or freezes up, dismount the cooling unit (very easy; 3 clips and shimmy it out), peel off the cheap foam rubber sealing tape, use butyl sealant, and make sure the cooling unit is slightly tilted toward the rear. Then the unit will function much better. It will still be loud, not fit for in the main house. If you need to replace the cooling unit, exact fits are available and they are much, much more quiet. If you want to have someone else do it, call a commercial refrigeration company. They are much cheaper than anyone the manufacturer or other manufacturers will recommend, as I learned. Still, at this price point, there are no remotely viable alternatives. I just wish I had known what the real problem was. i would buy it again with the reservations i have expressed.

I really want to love my new Vinotemp 440 but it's just not holding a stable temp. It's fluctuating between 55 and 62 degrees even when the door has been shut for 24 or more hours. We put our own temp gauge at the bottom of the unit and it looks like Vinotemp's gauge isn't very accurate. Evidently, the unit runs an automatic defrost every 24 hours which we don't need in our warm climate but it can't be shut off. Can't tell if this is the problem or not. We will likely request a new unit due to the temp fluctuation problem. Customer service rep was not knowledgeable about the product and was dismissive about the temperature regulation issue. Be aware that the HomeDepot shipper will drop off unit without helping with any installation.

If you don't care about cosmetics this is a great deal. I don't know how it would hold up in an extreme environment but it can easily handle Oregon summers in the garage. The racking is the low budget variety (not the nice all redwood variety) BUT it holds the big modern Pinot, Shiraz, and CdP bottles so that's a huge plus. The unit levels easily, has digital readout on the temperature, and the doors, latches and locks are all solid. The cellar vents to the back -- so don't let the delivery guys back it all the way up to the wall like I did.

The unit is as nice as it appears online. Compressor noise is normal for unit that large. Definitely something for garage or separate room. Wine storage racking is sturdy. Delivery included removal of packaging and leveling. Necessary for a unit that size.