Do I need a wine cooler to store my wines or can I store them in a normal refrigerator?

A wine cooler is designed to maintain the liquid temperature of your wine to within a degree or two of the temperature you set it for. A refrigerator is designed to store food at below 40° using as little energy as possible. The temperature of the foods and liquids inside the refrigerator will vary quite a bit, which is something you want to avoid when storing wine for longer periods of time.

You can keep wine in your refrigerator for short periods of time with no effect. We're talking days or weeks, not months. Keeping your wines at a consistent temperature is far more important than keeping them at a specific temperature. If you want to store bottles for months or year, get a wine fridge. If you only have a couple of bottles in the house and you drink them within a couple weeks of bringing them home, go ahead and put them in a fridge.

The purpose of a wine cooler is to store wines at their proper temperatures in a proper manner. Wine coolers are set to higher temperature ranges than other systems simply because wine should not be kept as cool as other beverages.