The DIVA EVOLUTION Range From Avintage - The Eurocave Killer?

European Quality

The first thing to note is that the Avintage cabinets are produced in Portugal so manufactured in Europe. 

Our initial impressions of this cabinet were excellent, everything on this cabinet was pristine and looked like it was a £2000 wine cabinet without a doubt in any of our minds.

From the get go, you can really see that the DIVA range is designed to compete with Eurocave, not compromising on quality but coming in at a very reasonable price point. 

The functions the Avintage units have would put them against the V-Revelation range from Eurocave which retails at over £5000 making the Avintage units priced very keenly for what you get.

Exterior Review

The exterior is finished to an excellent level, the outer body is very solid and doesn't look like your typical big black box that some cabinets do. The door itself deserves a special mention - with no door frame, the glass runs edge to edge which makes it look fantastic. 

The door is so thick and weighty, you can really feel the quality (or it may just be the weight of the glass!) - the hinges are spring loaded which means that if you do accidentally leave the door open it will automatically shut.

There is a small window at the top of the door which allows you to view the control panel and check the the status of the wine cabinet without opening the door and allowing a rush of cooler air into the cabinet - the DIVA cabinets are extremely well thought out.  The lock is simple to use and the magnetic seal on the door is very strong so the door definitely won't be popping open any time soon.

Interior Overview

As with the the exterior, the smooth surfaces and its quality feel continue inside - all of the interior walls are manufactured from smooth metal which encourages excess water vapour to condense onto it once the door has been opened - just like Eurocave and a step above the more commonly used PVC lining that most of the cabinets use.

The rails run from top to bottom which allows you to position the shelves that come with the cabinet at lots of different positions, or you can add more shelves should you want to. 

The actual brackets are simple to fix into the rails and once they are hooked in correctly, the shelf really won't be moving at all! 

The shelves in the DIVA range are the commonly used PREMIUM shelves that are used across the Avintage and Climadiff products, they are very sturdy and can hold upto 52 bottles per shelf, because they are treated and are rot-proof which makes them more reliable in the long term than metal shelves. 

Due to the way the slats are spaced, they are suitable for multiple bottle shapes but do bear in mind by mixing bottle shapes, the capacity will come down.

The interior is lit by bright white LED lighting and with the glass door it does -create a very nice features and should travel someway down the cabinet and will also light up the charcoal filter on the back wall to allow you to change this with ease every year or two.

Controls and Functions

One thing that makes the Avintage cabinet different to anything else in the European market is the fact it has a full colour LCD display which shows both the current temperature inside the cabinet and the relative humidity, as with the premium Eurocave units.  

The control panel is easy to use, setting the temperature is a breeze and there is also the option to drill down into the settings to play about with some of the other features like; when the winter system is activated, factory setting is 8°C the cabinet will start heating as well as cooling when the ambient temperature is 8°C or below.

As mentioned earlier, you can clearly see the control panel through the glass door and there is a periodic 'system check' which comes up on the screen and let's you know that everything is in order - very clever we think!

Noise Level and Efficiency

The DIVA line uses the same base components so we can assume that all of the cabinets will produce the same noise level, they all cool via 'direct cooling' so no fans are involved - from our experience of having this unit in our Chester office, it is easily the quietest cabinet we have installed, the compressor is so quiet you will hardly even notice it.  If anything, you might even question whether it is actually doing anything at all, but after multiple temperature tests, it was bang on 12°C at 85% capacity.

Energy wise, the Avintage units are all rated A or A+ which is about as good as it gets at the minute and very comparable against, Eurocave - we would expect one of the larger units to cost between £15-20 a year to run.

Overview

We have installed quite a few display models over the year and the DIVA line was definitely one to remember - we keep talking about Eurocave but from what we can see in terms of what you get for £1000-2000 more with a Eurocave is negligible. 

Yes you get the brand heritage that comes with a Eurocave cabinet but what else are you paying for? If you wanted to, you can also add sliding shelves to any of the Avintage units and you can basically set the cabinet up exactly how you want it.

If you’d like to consider an inexpensive option when looking for a storage unit, we recommend our Artevino range. Artevino is a much more cost-effective version compared to Avintage, with many customers purchasing from the collection that we stock here at Elite Wine Refrigeration. 

Artevino is similar to Avintage, at a lower price. With both brands leading in the wine storage industry, we’re happy to be able to work so closely with both companies to ensure we have their products stocked on our site.

For more information about Artevino, feel free to contact a member of our team for additional information.

As you can tell, we have been very impressed by this range of cabinets and we will continue to share videos on our social media platforms about the different functions they have - if you have any specific questions about the DIVA range or would like to come and see it, please get in touch with us.