If you’re a wine drinker that occasionally can’t quite finish that great bottle, you’ve probably been confronted by the problem of vino that just isn’t so keeno the next day. Luckily, Coravin is here with a novel new solution. Thanks to the manufacturer’s ingenious invention, it’s argon to the rescue!
I recently got a note from a p/r agency that read, in part, “Don’t you hate it when you just can’t drink all of that bottle of great wine and worry that it will go bad before you can finish it?”
Wait, what? “Can’t drink all the bottle?” I am unfamiliar with this concept. But I spoke with other folks who told me that indeed, sometimes they only drink part of a bottle after they open it. I assume they’re talking about the third bottle of the evening…
If you ever find yourself in this situation, now there is an excellent solution. (Besides calling me to come over and help you out…) Coravin is an ingenious new product that promises to work so much better than those “bottle savers” that have appeared in SkyMall catalogs for years. Those types of gadgets require to refill the bottle with inert gas to prevent oxidation after uncorking and then trying to find a secure closure to hold the gas in. The main problem with this idea is that every time you uncork it to pour another glass, you have to repeat the process of preservation.
Coravin overcomes this by cleverly allowing you to never uncork the bottle at all. As long as you are using a natural cork closure, all you have to do attach the Coravin to the top of the bottle by clamping the device to the neck and piercing the cork with a hollow needle by lowering a lever. The attached canister of argon, a safe, tasteless inert gas, pressurizes the bottle and displaces all of the oxygen in the neck of the bottle.
You also use the Coravin as your pourer, so as the level of the wine lowers in the bottle, more gas is added to maintain the pressure and displace more of the air in the bottle. Pretty darned genius!
Now, it’s not cheap at $299 for the Coravin, and a pack of three argon capsules runs for $30. Each capsule is good for about 15 glasses of wine, so figure you’re adding less than a buck per glass to ensure that you are drinking the best-preserved wine available. I wouldn’t waste the argon on a ten-dollar bottle, but if your cellar is full of fantastic wines and you don’t want to risk oxidation, this may just be the tool for you.
Think what this could do for a restaurant with a robust by-the-glass program. They can now be free to open their most precious vintages with the confidence that if they don’t sell the entire bottle in one night, it will still be as good as ever for years. The inventor of Coravin wouldn’t release his device until he has tested wine that has been held for five years against a freshly opened bottle of the same vintage, so you know it has to be good.
Coravin is available from the company’s website where you can also learn more about the technology.
