bit-tech Shopping: Waring PC100 Professional Tabletop 1-Bottle Wine Chiller

Rating: 4

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Does a good job with keeping wine at a constant temperature.

Weaknesses: Takes ages to cool down to temps in the forties. Can't set a temperature directly. Noisy fan.

Summary: I bought this chiller for keeping wine at a constant temperature at the table, a job it basically fulfills. The overall design however leaves much to desire. Even if the bottle is already cool (coming from the wine cellar) the device starts out from room temperature. It seems a considerable amount of time is actually spent on cooling the device itself down. Once it matches the temperature the bottle is already at it seems to work a little faster. For example, it takes almost three hours to get a bottle that is already at 55F down to 44F when the ambient temp is 76F. During the entire time the fan doesn't stop whizzing. The whizzing fan pretty much disqualifies it as a table-side device. Once it has reached the desired temp is does a good job of keeping it, and with reasonable accuracy - set to 44F the wine measures out at 42F (verified using two different thermometers). I really wish I could set the temperature directly without having to browse the build-in wine library. The library is of limited utility, for example it doesn't know anything about blush wines. I got mine for $60 - for that money I'll keep it. Had I paid $100 I would probably return it.

Rating: 2

Time with product: 1 Weeks

Strengths: Well, it looks nice.

Weaknesses: Does not get wine to correct temperature, so that about says it all.

Summary: I bought this as a gift for someone. I decided to test it against my tabletop wine fridge that is very accurate in temperature. I followed the instructions to the letter. It simply did not get any wine to the correct temperature within the time allotted; in fact, it took more than twice the amount of time to get somewhat close, but was still high by several degrees. Nice idea, bad engineering.