Originally, wine coolers were something made at home using light, dry white wines mixed with lemon-lime soda. Essentially, they were just a tarted up version of a white wine spritzer.
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By the early s though, store bought wine coolers were being marketed as soda for adults. They came in individual size bottles with easy open twist off caps, and they contained real fruit, artificial fruit flavors, and cheap wine, with roughly the same alcohol content as beer (4-6%). Flavor-wise, they were kind of a combination of a wine spritzer and sangria.
According to the Chicago Tribune, in , wine coolers accounted for close to 10% of all wine consumption in the United States. By at their peak popularity, that number was up to 20%, and wine cooler sales topped a billion dollars annually.
The original bottled wine cooler was called California Cooler, which was founded by a couple of southern California 20-somethings. Michael Crete, the cooler's inventor said, 'The gang would get together on the beach in Santa Cruz, and I would mix together all these tropical flavors'pineapple, grapefruit, lemon-lime, white wine, and a little bit of club soda.'
At the time, Crete was working in wine and beer sales, so he teamed up with his high school buddy with a business degree and they spent a year and a half perfecting the formula.
California Cooler took off like crazy. They were selling 10 million cases a year by . But before long, the big wine producers like Gallo wanted in on the boom. They launched Bartles & Jaymes in , flooding primetime TV with ads. Seagram's followed suit, and before long California Cooler was losing market share and fast.
By , wine coolers were EVERYWHERE, but by 88 & 89, people were starting to lose interest, and sales started to dip across the board. The real death knell for wine coolers though came in when Congress more than quintupled the excise tax on wine from $.17/gallon to $1.07/gallon.
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This made wine blending a losing game and before you knew it, sweet carbonated malt beverages like Zima and Smirnoff Ice jumped in to take over the market. Bartles & Jaymes and Seagram's both launched their own malt beverages, but California Cooler didn't' survive.
How do you know how many bottles a wine cooler will hold? Will a wine cooler be able to accommodate your collection? Here are a few tips to ensure you are buying a wine cooler that will be functional and stylish.
The bottle capacity of a wine refrigerator is an estimate of how many wine bottles will fit inside the fridge. Unless otherwise stated, the wine racking inside a wine cooler is designed for standard Bordeaux-sized wine bottles (see image below). For example, if a wine cooler has a bottle capacity of 155, 155 Bordeaux bottles will fit perfectly. Still, if you must adjust the shelving to accommodate other bottle sizes, the actual bottle capacity may differ. Check out Vinotemp's downloadable bottle capacity chart for more details on bottle capacity (PDF)
The bottle configuration of a wine refrigerator is the order in which bottles sit on the wine racking. Some wine fridges will have the bottles lying on their sides with the neck facing out. Others will have the necks of the bottle facing the front of the cooler. When you first load your new wine fridge with wine, look inside the owner's manual for instructions on properly configuring your wine bottles to ensure you maximize the bottle capacity.
Can you store larger or oddly shaped bottles inside a wine cooler? You can. Select a fridge with adjustable shelves and a bulk storage section when shopping for a wine cooler. You may even remove one shelf to store larger bottles safely.
When determining how much storage space you'll need for your wine collection, you should factor in how many bottles you currently own, your purchasing habits, and your drinking habits. If you have the space and budget, select a larger wine cooler that gives you ample room for future wine purchases and your current collection. It is much better to have too much space than too little.Do you need help selecting the best wine cooler for your wine collection? Contact us today with our
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