Vin Tech: Smart Storage Options for Your Wine

Wine, like nearly every culinary art, is no stranger to smart technology.

With precise temperature requirements, collector preferences and security concerns, wine—and more specifically, wine storage—has been fruitful ground for connected devices.

Here are some of our top picks for smartly storing your vino.

Plum

_Plum

Plum is perfect for the collector who is big on wine but short on space. Once a bottle is inserted into this countertop contraption, it automatically identifies the varietal, region, winery and wine, and prepares the drink exactly as the creator intended—precisely puncturing the cork (or alternate top) and bringing it to the optimal temperature identified by the winemaker. Essentially, Plum provides a speedy, sommelier-curated wine cave for those bottles you’ve been keeping in your kitchen cabinet. And Plum’s dual chambers, which can hold bottles at their ideal temperature for up to 90 days, means you can provide your guests (or yourself) with a little vino variety.

Plum is available for approx. $3260.

Café Wine Center

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For the moderate collector with a mind for display, Café offers a 46-bottle wine fridge with a LED light wall that spans the entire back panel, providing a stylish lighting solution for selecting and showing your collection. Owners can control this lighting feature on the Wi-Fi-enabled Wine Center via SmartHQ app, dimming and illuminating their wine storage with the swipe of a finger. In addition to being chic, the Wine Center covers the practical, with a dual zone chiller—store your reds and whites at different temperatures—which, again, can be entirely controlled by the accompanying app.

The Café Wine Center is available for approx. $3260.

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator

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You can’t talk about high-tech fridges without mentioning LG, and the Wine Cellar Refrigerator doesn’t disappoint. This 65-bottle wine storage solution is Wi-Fi-equipped, meaning users can exercise control over its three temperature zones with the accompanying ThinQ app—but they don’t even need to trouble themselves. Built with LG’s Optimal Preservation Technology, the Wine Cellar Refrigerator automatically works to reduce temperature fluctuations, light exposure and vibrations, while also locking in humidity. And the convenient features don’t stop there. The Wine Cellar Refrigerator includes a smart sensor at the bottom that lets users open the door with a wave of their foot—or with the sound of their voice, as the clever cooler also works with Alexa and Google Assistant. But why open the fridge at all if you don’t need to? The Wine Cellar Refrigerator also includes LG’s InstaView tech, which allows users to simply knock twice on the front glass of the fridge, instantly turning it from opaque to transparent.

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator is available for approx. $9130.

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage

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A leading name in lowering temperatures, Sub-Zero offers oenophiles style, security and smart features with its Designer Wine Storage series. Holding 59, 86, or 102 bottles, depending on model size, the Wi-Fi-equipped Designer Series allows users to remotely control temperatures across two to four temperature zones, while dual evaporators maintain consistent humidity throughout. And because collections can often be priceless (sentimentally, if not financially), the Designer Series easily integrates with your home security system, ensuring that your beloved Beaujolais remain yours.

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage refrigerators are available for approx. $8195 to $12,060, depending on size.

The idea of wallpaper elicits so much apprehension in homeowners, New York designer Francis Toumbakaris purposely uses the term “wallcovering” when speaking to clients about it. Yet decorating websites and media accounts teem with instances of the stuff. “It transforms a room and gives it personality,” said Casey Keasler, founder of design studio Casework, in Portland, Ore.

So what keeps folks from hanging the gorgeous material, and how do homeowners get over these wallpaper willies? Here, some case studies of conversions.

Hangup: It’s too pricey.

Budget concerns can hamstring homeowners. Home-services company Angi estimates that wallpaper can cost as much as $12 a square foot for labor and materials, while painting tops out at $6. “If the wall surface needs work beforehand, prices go up,” said Bethany Adams, an interior designer in Louisville, Ky. And Keasler notes that paper can cost as much as $400 a roll.

Antidote: Baby steps

New York designer Tara McCauley says homeowners can get more hang for their buck by using paper strategically. In an apartment in Brooklyn whose homeowners sweated the bottom line, she coated only the hallway with a dark-blue pattern inspired by Portuguese tiles. “It added so much impact,” McCauley said of the modest use. The designer adds that another way to save money is by hanging what she calls the gateway drug to wallpaper: patternless grass cloth. With no need to align a motif, the material goes up quickly and costs less to install, she says, “but it adds visual depth in a way plain paint never could.”

Hangup: I’ll get sick of it

A fear of commitment stops many would-be wall paperers, who worry about having a change of heart later. Erik Perez, a design publicist with his own firm in Los Angeles, campaigned hard for what he thought was the perfect old-Hollywood look for his and his husband’s dining room—a maximalist, leafy green wallpaper made famous by the mid-20th-century decoration of the Beverly Hills Hotel. His husband, Paul Hardoin, a voice-over actor, resisted. “Is it going to go out of style? Will I tire of it? Will it affect resale value?” he worried.

Erik Perez, right, and his husband, Paul Hardoin, in their Los Angeles dining room, clad in CW Stockwell’s Martinique paper. Photo: Julie Goldstone for WSJ

Antidote: Low-use spaces

Infrequently used rooms can carry a bold choice long-term. Of the Brooklyn hallway she wrapped in blue, McCauley noted, “It’s a pass-through, so you don’t get overwhelmed by a bold pattern.” Ditto powder and dining rooms, like that of Perez, who said, “We only used that room when we were entertaining and it was too cold to be outside.”

It took three years, but Hardoin caved when the banana-leaf pattern became available in blue. “I thought it looked cool,” Hardoin said. He took the leap, knowing his sister Annette Moran (a wallpaper enthusiast) would be their DIY installer. “Now it’s the happiest room in the house,” he said.

Hangup: It’s dated

When Sarah and Nate Simon bought a historic home in Louisville, Ky., the walls sported oppressively dark patterns, including big, repeating medallions set in a grid. Sarah recalls thinking, “ ‘Not this! What’s the opposite of this?’ In my mind that would be paint.” Even for folks who haven’t pulled down awful examples, “the word ‘wallpaper’ can take them back to flowery patterns of the ’50s and ’60s that feel very dated,” said Toumbakaris.

Antidote: Modernity

“Wallpaper does not mean what it used to. It can be meandering, abstract, ombre or sisal,” said Simon’s interior designer, Bethany Adams. She suggested a sophisticated Chinoiserie that New York designer Miles Redd, in a collaboration with Schumacher, updated with an aqua colorway. Adams explains that like most Chinoiseries, this pattern doesn’t repeat for more than 8 feet. “You get a peripatetic design that keeps the eye engaged,” she said. “It’s looser.” Said Simon of her dining room today, “It’s a complete transformation, like art on my walls.”

Stereotypes of fusty florals and pitiless patterns fall away when designers present homeowners with contemporary picks. Still, sometimes the conversion takes time. One of Keasler’s clients, gun-shy after removing old paper, came back a year later, ready. “We chose a clean classic style that was graphic and minimal for a modern edge in the bathroom,” said the designer.