This invention relates to wine coolers, and, more generally, to devices for maintaining wines or other bottled beverages at desired temperatures.

Many beverages are chilled before consumption, for example, white wines, rose wines, Champagne and mineral water. Conventionally, the chilling is carried out in a refrigerator, or in an ice bucket.

A conventional ice bucket consists simply of a container, commonly made of metal, into which a quantity of ice is deposited so as to surround the bottle containing the beverage to be chilled. Though this method is reasonably efficient at chilling the beverage, it suffers from the disadvantage that when the ice melts the bottle will tend to fall over or float, and additionally becomes wet and difficult to handle.

Recently it has been proposed to provide a cooling device comprising a flexible jacket for attachment around the beverage bottle, the jacket containing a substance of relatively high heat capacity, the jacket being cooled in a freezer prior to wrapping round the bottle. Such covers are clumsy to use, however, and tend to obscure the bottle label when in use.

As an alternative to the traditional ice bucket, insulating bottle holders are sometimes used which comprise a rigid plastic structure having an air-filled cavity wall, and shaped to fit a conventional wine bottle. Such holders are reasonably efficient at maintaining a

wine bottle at the temperature at which the bottle was placed in the holder, but they cannot provide a cooling function, the beverage necessarily needing to be pre- cooled.

It has been proposed, see European Patent Application 0023237, to provide an insulating bottle holder of the type described above with cooling members which are removable and can therefore be pre-chilled in a freezer. The European Application discloses an arrangement where two such cooling members are provided each of which is receivable within the container in one of two alternate positions relative the longitudinal axis of the container which is bucket-shaped. In a first of these positions the cooling members define, with an insert of the container, a bottle receiving zone of a first size, for example, 1 litre. In the second position where the inserts are relatively closer to the longitudinal axis they define themselves, not in conjunction with the insert, a bottle receiving zone of smaller size, for example 0.7 litres.

British Patent Application 2192262 describes a drinks cooler in the form of a generally rectangular container including four centrally positioned cooling members spaced from each other to define a bottle receiving zone and four arcuate cooling members located at the corners of the cooler which define with the central members four drinking glass receiving areas. The central members are generally rectangular with opposed concave

faces of different curvature whereby they may be rotated to vary the size of the bottle and glass receiving zones.

Both of the above described., arrangements are relatively complicated, the first requiring a special insert and the second eight cooling members. Furthermore, neither can accommodate bottles of different shapes.

A container for beverage bottles, in accordance with the invention, comprises an outer casing and at least one removable spacing element, the casing and spacing element being shaped so that the spacing element may be selectively received in the casing in first and second alternative positions in which the spacing element forms with the casing first and second cavities, each for receiving a beverage bottle, the cavity so formed being of substantially different size and/or shape.

The advantage of this is that with a single spacing element differently sized and in a preferred embodiment differently shaped, cavities may be formed simply by the element and the casing.

A second removable spacing element is preferably provided, the casing and the second spacing element being shaped so that the second spacing element may be received in the casing to form with the casing a third cavity for receiving a beverage bottle simultaneously with formation of said first cavity. The third cavity is suitably of substantially similar size and shape tc said first cavity. Thus with only two elements, two bottle receiving cavities can be formed whereby the container can be used with two

bottles simultaneously.

In a particularly preferred embodiment the first cavity is shaped to correspond generally to the outer profile of a bottle of slightly larger diameter than a standard wine bottle, whilst the second cavity is of generally oval shape to receive a bottle of bulbous shape. Thus the container may be used with standard wine bottles, Champagne bottles, mineral water bottles and the like, all of which will be accommodated in the first cavity. It may alternatively be used with bulbous bottles of the type commonly used for Portuguese wines such as "Mateus" (Trade Mark) which will be accommodated in the second cavity.

Very suitably, for ease of manufacture, the second spacing element is substantially identical to the first spacing element.

The or each spacing element may comprise a hollow cell fillable with a freezing liquid. Thus the container not only serves to support beverage bottles but also may possess a positive cooling function whilst avoiding the use of loose ice. The fact that the spacing element(s) is removable facilitates freezing thereof. In the preferred embodiment described above where two spacing elements are provided, these may be received in the outer casing in back-to-back relationship and the cells forming the spacing elements may be independently fillable with freezable liquid so as to permit the temperature of the two cavities simultaneously formed thereby to be selected independently.

The location of the or each spacing element within the container in the first and second positions may be the same and t a or each spacing element may be receivable in that location in both a first orientation and a second orientation rotated 180" from the first.

In a further preferred embodiment the outer casing and the or each spacing element are shaped in a complementary fashion so that the or each element is firmly retained by the casing in the alternate positions thereof. The retention of the spacing elements within the container may be achieved by providing vertical ridges down opposite side edges of the elements which are received in corresponding generally vertically extending valleys on the inner surface of the outer casing.

It is also preferred that the shape of the or each spacing element is such as to allow the element to lie in a stable orientation on a flat surface such as the base of a refrigerator freezer compartment or a domestic freezer shelf so as to avoid unnecessary spillage of liquid such as water during the filling and freezing process.

Conveniently, the stable orientation may be achieved by placing the operationally vertical main axis of the elements in a generally horizontal plane. The elements may have a concave face on an operationally vertical side wall thereof. In this case the edges formed at the opposite sides of the concave faces where the concave faces join the main body of the elements are preferably generally straight and coplanar, so as to

provide means to support the elements in a generally horizontal stable orientation.

Each element is suitably provided with an aperture for filling the element with freezable liquid. The aperture is preferably placed at a position generally at the uppermost portion of the element when lying in the aforementioned stable horizontal orientation, to minimize spillage of water. Preferably, the aperture extends partially downwardly from said uppermost position, in- order to prevent complete filling of the element with water and consequent risk of breakage upon freezing.

The invention is hereinafter described in more detail by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of the outer casing of a container according to the invention;

Figure 2 is a partially cut away view corresponding to Figure 1, showing the internal structure of the Figure 1 outer casing;

Figure 3 is a perspective view of the outer casing shown in Figure 1, with two cells inserted in back-to-back relationship;

Figure 4 is a perspective view of the Figure 1 casing, shown with one cell inserted in alternative position;

Figure 5 is an enlarged perspective view (with hidden lines ghosted) of a single cell of the type appearing in Figures 3 and 4; and

Figure 6 is a perspective view of the outer casing of an alternative embodiment of the container incorporating a thermometer (shown ghosted) .

Referring to Figure 1, an outer casing 10 has a double wall structure, comprising outer wall 12 and inner wall 14, which are separated by an air gap. Preferably, the casing is manufactured from moulded thermoplastics material. For convenience, the inner and outer wall sections 12 and 14 may be moulded separately and joined by a gasket 16 (omitted from Figures 2, 3, 4 and 6 for the purposes of clarity) .

The structure of the internal wall 14 is illustrated in Figure 2. Ribs 18 provided on the base serve to minimize the area of contact with bottles which are placed in the wine cooler, thus reducing scratching. Generally vertically orientated ribs 20 are moulded on opposite sides of the internal wall 14 (only one shown in Figure 2) , and these define vertical valleys 22 for the reception of insertable cells 24 illustrated in Figures 3 and 4.

An individual cell 24 is illustrated in Figure 5, and comprises a hollow compartment, preferably constructed from rigid plastics material. The vertical end wall 26 of the cell 24 have profiles complementary to the profile of the valleys 22 provided on the inner wall 14 of casing 10, so as to allow cell 24 to be inserted vertically into casing 10, and retained therein. One vertical side wall of cell 24, the "front" side wall in use, is provided with

concave face 28, shaped generally as a segment of a cylinder, so as to correspond generally with the profile of a wine bottle.

Cell 24 has an aperture 30 to permit the cell to be filled with water prior to freezing. To provide stability for cell 24 during the freezing operation, the edges 32 thereof which are formed at the opposite sides of concave face 28 are generally straight and coplanar, to enable cell 24 to be supported on a flat horizontal- surface, such as a shelf in a domestic freezer. Additionally, the width of the cell 24 between edges 32 and back side wall 34 generally tapers from the top to the bottom, so that when the cell is lying in the aforementioned horizontal orientation, the uppermost portion thereof is defined by edge 36. Thus, it will be appreciated that aperture 30, which is formed in back side wall 34 and top wall 38 where they meet to form edge 36, is positioned at the uppermost point when the cell is lying horizontally.

The purpose of this positioning is to prevent spillage of water during the freezing process. It is preferred however, that the cell be not completely filled with water prior to freezing, as the expansion of the water upon freezing might otherwise fracture the cell. Aperture 30 has extension 40 into top wall 38 (which is generally vertical when cell 24 is lying horizontally) , to prevent such over filling.

The container may be used with two cells 24

inserted in casing 10 in back-to-back relationship as shown in Figure 3. In such configuration, two cavities 42 are formed at opposite ends of the wine cooler, each of which may receive a bottle of wine, or other beverage, such as, for example, mineral water. Cells 24 may be filled with water and frozen independently of each other, so as to provide a cooling ef t, or, alternatively an insulating effect, as desired. For example, if the wine cooler is to hold one bottle required to be chilled, and another required to be kept at room temperature (a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red wine for instance) , one of the cells 24 may be filled with water and frozen to provide a chilled cavity 42 at one end of the wine cooler, whereas the other cell 24 may be left empty, so as to insulate the opposite cavity 42 from the frozen cell.

Alternatively, both cells may be filled with water and frozen, if two chilled cavities are needed, or equally both may be left empty if both cavities are required to be at room temperature.

Furthermore, one or both of the cells may be filled with warm water, if it is desired to raise the temperature in one or both of the cavities. Inadvertently chilled red wine may be brought up to a desired drinking temperature in this way, for example.

The back walls 34 of the cells 24 may be curved to facilitate location of the cells 24 in the back-to-back position and to provide further stability for this position.

An alternative configuration is illustrated in Figure 4. Here one of the cells 24 has been removed from casing 10, and the other placed in an .orientation rotated by 180° about a vertical axis with respect to the orientation shown in Figure 3. This provides an enlarged cavity 44 for reception of bottles of bulbous shape, such as those used for some Portuguese wines, such as "Mateus" (Trade Mark) .

Figure 6 illustrates an alternative embodiment of casing in which a receptacle 46 is provided between the outer and inner walls of the casing, the receptacle 46 receiving thermometer 48 which may be removed by manipulating plate 50 and used to measure the temperature in the respective cavities.

Although the described casings are manufactured from plastics material and have double walled structure, neither of these features is essential. The outer casing can be made of any suitable material, which need not even have insulating properties (though a degree of insulation is preferred) . It is envisaged that embodiments may be constructed in which the outer casing is metallic.

It will be appreciated that although illustrated as comprising an outer casing with two cells only, by appropriate elongation and shaping of the outer casing, extra cells could be accommodated to allow accommodation of extra bottles. Further, with only a single cell, the container is useable alternately for a "standard" bottle and a bulbous bottle. It will also be appreciated that

the cells may not be of identical configuration although this is preferred for ease of manufacturing.