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Bordeaux fireplace: A $1,700 bad idea

The Bordeaux electric fireplace heats your room and chills your wine, all in a single unit.

Michelle Thatcher Former Senior Associate Editor, Laptops
Tech expert Michelle Thatcher grew up surrounded by gadgets and sustained by Tex-Mex cuisine. Life in two major cities--first Chicago, then San Francisco--broadened her culinary horizons beyond meat and cheese, and she's since enjoyed nearly a decade of wining, dining, and cooking up and down the California coast. Though her gadget lust remains, the practicalities of her small kitchen dictate that single-function geegaws never stay around for long.
Michelle Thatcher

Bordeaux fireplace

When you first see the Bordeaux electric fireplace, you might think, "Gee, this looks like an attractive way to get a fireplace in my living room without installing a chimney. A real wood mantle! Actual heat! Remote-controlled convenience!"

But then you open the side panels to reveal hidden storage--for wine. Wine, right next to a heat source. And that heat source is capable of warming up to 400 square feet.

I can kind of get what manufacturer Muskoka is going for; after all, who doesn't enjoy a glass of wine while warming up next to the fire? And to the company's credit, half of the wine storage is in the form of the hardest-working 12-bottle wine fridge around.

However, as someone who's spent the last few months worrying about how much summer temperatures will affect some of my stored wines, I have a hard time accepting that anyone would pay $1,700 to keep their wines right next to a heater. What do you think: does anything redeem this idea?

Via Appliancist