Can I Also Store Food in My Wine Refrigerator? Good Questions

Q: My partner and I live in a small NYC apartment. One thing we couldn't part from when we moved here was our 50-bottle wine refrigerator. It keeps a temperature of around 45-47 degrees. Half of it is always empty and we were thinking of putting some food items in here - what do you suggest?

Our thoughts run from artisan cheeses, potatoes, onions, garlic, fruits...?

Sent by Michael

Editor: Michael, you can definitely double-task your wine refrigerator for certain food items. Meat, eggs, and dairy are not options, as they need to be stored at temperatures under 40°F -- see this USDA page for more info:

• Refrigeration and Food Safety

But fruit and vegetables can definitely be stored there! Overall, it's best to store most fruits and vegetables at about 33°F — but this is just to prolong their freshness. If you are using your refrigerator to just store produce overnight or for a few days, the temperature there should be fine.

Cheese should be stored at temperatures between 35° and 45°F so you might be able to get away with some hard cheeses.

Readers, do you use a wine refrigerator to store anything besides wine?

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(Image: Wine and Storage)

Comments (9)

"Overall, it's best to store most fruits and vegetables at about 30°F"-- that's below freezing! i think that might be a mistake?

As a home cheese-maker, I can tell you that most "artisan" cheese should be stored between 45-55, depending on the variety. This may not adhere to the USDA guidelines, but does allow the cheese to continue aging (and living) while being stored.

BTW, I actually use a "wine" fridge to age my home-made cheeses.

What she said. 30 degrees will end up freezing your veggies! No good!

Oops! Yes, that is misleading (the fruit and veggies temp). I'll adjust the post.

Basically, you want to store fruit and veggies as CLOSE to freezing as possible without actually freezing them. I store a lot of apples every winter (fresh picked from a local orchard) and they advise storing them as cold as possible without freezing them.

NOOOOO! Not if you have wine in the fridge at the same time. The whole idea of a wine fridge is to keep your wines in ideal conditions, and that means not only temp and humidity but also smell. Any thing other than wine will with time (as short as a couple of months!) ruin your wine. Garlic flavored Chardonnay?

We use our wine fridge to store cheese and fruits too.

@hande, would that happen if the bottles were still sealed?

I am talking *only* about sealed wines, all others will be gone within a day or two.
No seal is 100% air-tight, this is how our wine "ages". Natural cork ones will be more sensitive than others, but *all* wine bottles are prone to getting smells from the environment.
The foil around the neck/cork is a non-issue, if you look carefully, you will see a couple of tiny holes at the top.
Just to clarify: I am a sommelier, I know what I am talking about, it is not my *opinion* but a fact.

Agreed 110% with Hande. I just started learning to age wine properly and found out that storing a premier cru Burgundy in my basement next to a bag of onions was WRONG.