Have you ever wanted to taste and see how that single bottle of 1989 Château Pétrus in your cellar is evolving but you really don’t want to crack it up just yet?
Well, the Coravin Wine Access System might just be the answer to your dilemma.
The Coravin is a wine preserving/dispensing system that allows pouring any amount of wine from a bottle without removing the capsule and cork. The bottle is returned to the cellar, and then more wine can be poured days, weeks, months, and perhaps years later.
The Coravin uses a thin, hollow needle pierced through the capsule and cork to “access” the wine. When the pouring lever is activated, the bottle becomes pressurized with (inert) argon gas and wine flows through the needle and into the glass. Once wine is poured, the needle is pulled out and the cork “reseals” itself. The bottle can then be laid away again for pouring later. As argon replaces the headspace in the bottle, the wine suffers no oxidative effects as it continues to age.
Does it really work? At $300 (plus the cost of replacement argon cartridges), I sure hope so. Friends who use it, love it. But being the skeptical one that I am, I still wonder how that bottle of Pétrus will fare. And so I’ve decided to test the Coravin, but not with the Pétrus, but some other wine until I “certify” this latest wine gadget.
Over the next several months, I will test the Coravin in several bottles of the same wine but sealed under four different closures: a natural cork, a 1+1 (aka twin-disc) stopper, a microagglomerate and a co-extruded “cork.” Wine will be bottled in a control bottle with one closure and a second bottle with the sample closure where samples will be withdrawn with the Coravin, and similarly with the other three closure types.
I will measure pH, total acidity (TA), volatile acidity (VA), free and total SO2, color intensity, hue, total phenols, and most important, dissolved oxygen in wine and headspace oxygen, i.e. the amount of oxygen in the headspace between the wine and closure, and use these measurements to look for any clues for signs of oxidation. Measurements will be taken after one week, one month, 3 months, 6 months and one year.
This should be interesting. So stay tuned for updates to see if the Coravin really performs.
Daniel Pambianchi
Greetings! I also have a Corovin the first model.. didn’t use it often until recently.. so I wonder if it has any effect of Coravin-Ed wine placed back for storage in horizontally and vertically..
Also, would like to hear out your experiment of Corovin effect on the closures that were used.
Cheers,
Stephanie
Greetings! I also have a Corovin, the first model.. didn’t use it often until recently.. so I wonder if there is any difference with Coravin-Ed bottle wine placed back for storage horizontally versus stored back vertically (upright) position?
Also, would like to hear out your experiment of Corovin effect on the closures that were used.
Cheers,
Stephanie
There was a another blog outlining the methods and results; there you will find a link to my research paper. Here is the link to the blog: https://www.techniquesinhomewinemaking.com/blog/how-good-is-the-coravin-the-results-are-in/
And here is the link to the paper if you want to access it directly: https://techniquesinhomewinemaking.com/attachments/File/Coravin%20Performance%20Study%20Paper%20v0.1.pdf
Cheers,
Daniel
Are you also researching on Corovin’s effectiveness on screw cap closures with their dedicated replacement closure to allow Corovin to be used to preserve the screwcapped bottle?
I have no plans to test the Coravin on screwcaps for now.
Cheers,
Daniel