Dual Vs Single Zone Wine Coolers: Differences & Similarities

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Dual Vs Single Zone Wine Coolers Differences
Similarities
What makes a good wine? Some say it's the soil,
some say it's the grapes, some say it's the
barrels in which the wine is aged, but they're
wrong. That's not to say that soil, grapes and
barrels aren't important, but nothing is more
important than temperature. Temperature
determines how quickly a wine ages and the
balance of flavours. If a bottle of wine is
chilled too long or left in the hot sun for a
few hours, it will become undrinkable. This is
why winemakers spend a lot of time on
temperature- controlled wine cellars and why
wine drinkers spend a lot of money on wine
coolers. A wine cooler is a small refrigerator
designed to keep your wine perfectly chilled
until you are ready to drink it. There are a
plethora of variations, but the most popular are
single zone wine coolers as well as dual-zone
wine coolers. Single zone wine coolers are very
easy to use. You raise or lower the temperature
to the ideal storage range (usually 55F) and
leave it there. A cooling system at the rear of
the unit sends cold air into the unit, preventing
the temperature from running out of control. The
wine stays cold and uncontaminated until it is
ready to be popped and drunk. Despite the
simplicity of this system, single-zone wine
coolers are quickly being replaced by a new and
innovative system the dual-zone wine cooler.
Dual-zone wine coolers offer the same level of
cooling power, but with better storage options.
By splitting the storage space in half, the Dual
Zone Wine Cooler provides excellent storage for
both red and white wines. Storing white wine at a
lower temperature prevents oxidation, making it
easy to enjoy both red and white wines at optimal
temperatures.
Oxidation Dual Zone Wine Cooler
Regular readers will know that wine is not a
static solution. It's a constantly evolving
mixture of more than a thousand different
components and chemicals - tannins, oxygen,
alcohols and esters - each reacting and
interacting with the other. This complexity is
what gives the wine its rich flavours and puts
it at risk when stored at the wrong
temperature. NewAir AWR-1160 Dual Zone Wine
Cooler/caption Many things can happen to wine
as it ages, but its greatest enemy is oxidation.
When oxygen interacts with the wine's chemical
solution, it flattens the rich, complex flavours
you love. It leads to the development of
aldehydes, organic compounds that give the wine
its old, critical flavour and also encourages
the growth of microbes that produce acetic acid,
one of the main components of vinegar.
Wistfully, if you possess a bottle of wine long
enough, there are some degree of oxidation which
is inevitable. Eventually, a small number of
oxygen molecules will eventually seep through the
cork and into the wine. The good news is that
there are two ways to slow this process the
first is tannin, which is determined by the
chemistry of the wine. The second is determined
by the temperature of the wine. Tannins are
organic chemicals found in the skins of fruits
such as bark, seeds, leaves and grapes. In wine,
tannins attract or bind oxygen molecules to form
long chains of molecules called polymers. The
more tannins there are in the wine, the fewer
free oxygen molecules there are to oxidize. Red
wine is filled with tannins because the skins
and seeds of the grapes are used to ferment them
when making the juice. It also absorbs more
tannins as it is aged in oak barrels. White wines
fermented without skins or seeds are less
susceptible to oxidation than red wines because
they have little or no tannins.
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With no chemical protection, the only way to
prevent oxidation is to store them at lower
temperatures. The temperature at which the wine
is stored determines the amount of energy
required for the chemical reactions inside the
wine. The rate of reaction doubles for each
18-degree increase in temperature. If you store
wine at 73F for one year, you've stored it at
55F for two years, which is the preferred
temperature, and if you store it at 91F for one
year, you've stored it at 55F for four
years. So why do winemakers care so much about
how their wines are stored? Why doesn't the wine
ripen faster when the temperature is raised?
That's because not all reactions that take place
inside a wine have the same heat threshold. For
example, it takes less energy for tannins to
polymerize than it takes for sugars and acids to
ferment. For tannins, raising the temperature to
73F is the equivalent of storing them at 55F
for eight years. This would throw off the balance
of flavours all together. But the process also
has the opposite effect. Lowering the
temperature of the wine below 55F slows down the
rate of reaction and, in particular, the rate of
oxidation. (At 55F, all of the wine's reaction
rates proceed at about the same pace.) Chilling
wine is a great way to extend the life of white
wine, as it is less harmful than heating it. This
method is only recommended for white wines, as
red wines, due to their tannins, do not benefit
much from lower temperatures. Some red wines are
actually so robust that they can be stored at
temperatures slightly above 55F without any
problems. These differences are why dual-zone
wine coolers are so advantageous. Red and white
wines can be stored together in the same unit
while customizing the storage temperature for red
and white wines. You can keep your wines fresher
for longer than if you were to store them at the
same temperature.
Serving Temperatures Dual Zone Wine Coolers
The temperature at which the wine is served is
just as crucial as the temperature at which the
wine is stored. Temperature not only affects the
chemistry of the wine, it also affects certain
microchannels called TRPM5, which are located on
the tongue. These channels transmit electrical
impulses to the brain that are interpreted as
taste. These channels are more receptive when
they are warm than when they are cold. This is
why warm food tastes better than cold and is one
of the reasons why wine should be served at a
different temperature than the one at which it
is being stored. A wine that is too cold will
taste weak and flat, while a wine that is too
warm will taste too strong. Another reason is
the effect of temperature on the flavor compound
of a wine. When a bottle of white wine is
chilled, its sweetness is diminished and it
becomes crisp and fruity. Red wines, on the other
hand, taste better at higher temperatures. The
higher the temperature, the less noticeable the
acidity and tannins, and the smoother the taste.
Temperature also increases the wine's volatility
- the rate at which the wine evaporates and
releases flavor compounds. The cooler the
temperature of the wine, the weaker the
aroma. The aroma of a wine is a major factor in
determining its taste. The human tongue can only
detect five basic tastes - sweet, salty, sour,
bitter and umami (meat) - but it can detect many
more when drinking wine. That's aromas, the
esters, aldehydes and terpenes that fill the head
of the glass. These components create the woody,
nutty, spicy and fruity aromas we enjoy when we
drink wine.
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The key is to make sure that the wine doesn't
become too volatile. Too many flavor compounds
can be overwhelming. You want to keep the wine
in a narrow range where they release just the
right amount of aroma. Too much of that and the
wine will taste bad. Here's what temperatures are
appropriate for the most popular reds and
whites. If you want to buy a dual zone wine
refrigerator in Australia, you can rely on
Kingsbottle one of the leading wine coolers
manufacturers in Australia.