So I’ll totally admit, I was one of the (I’m sure) many who laughed at the wine koozie that was shipped to me. Never used it and didn’t plan to. Opps… Tonight I wanted a glass of 2012 Liquid Farm Golden Slope while I grilled dinner. The wine was direct shipped to me and stored in my wine fridge ever since arrival. I put it in the fridge for 20 min from the Cellar, and then went to Coravin it. Needle went in easy, tipped it up, and as soon as I pressed the trigger, BOOOOM, I and my floor are covered in the delicious nectar I only wanted a small glass of. . I’ve opened lots of bottles uneventfully, and I stick to the ‘light trigger method’ to conserve argon, so I know this wasn’t an issue of me super-pressurizing the bottle.
I only post that it was a Liquid Farm bottle because I think we can all relate to the fact they aren’t cheap thin glass, no hard feelings toward Nikki and I hope this post isn’t taken as a bash towards LF, after I mopped the Chardonnay off my floor (thank god for wood floors) I Coravin’ed a '12White Hill…using the Coravin supplied Wine Koozie.
Fortunately as you can see since the bottom shot off I wasn’t injured at all, but I figured since I hadn’t seen an actual case report amongst ourselves I’d post my PSA. Would the Koozie had made any difference? No. I’d still have a floor covered in Chard. If the bottle had broken differently could I have gotten hurt? Maybe. But I’ll use the Koozie just to be on the safe side from now on.
I’m not surprised. I have seen enough broken bottles and bottles with obvious flaws in them that I can picture a bottle breaking in this manner. Kinda like stems. They may fall off the counter and hit the floor without breaking, but bump two of them together and one shatters or cracks.
Andrew, How many bottles have you accessed with your Coravin before this incident? I haven’t had a break yet but might start using the I condom now. Yikes!
I’ll gladly take the $50 hit once a year vs. the hundreds of dollars I used to pour down the drain and fear of opening/wasting a nice bottle since I usually can’t drink two nights in a row.
See the link I just posted. And I can confirm that the bottle in the review is still going strong with very little wine left. I poured another taste last night.
Because it was glass failure on a seam and there was just slight pressure applied, I think any device (Pungo as well) that imparts any pressure at all would have caused it to crack and might have cracked just being banged around. I wonder how often there are glass issues - is it likely enough that it is inevitable that anyone who uses a Coravin or other system that adds pressure will have this experience at some point over many years or is it so rare that it is not inevitable? I don’t really want to use the bottle condom but may consider it if it is more in the inevitable category.
I had a Vietti Arneis bottle that broke while just sliding it into a cardboard box to bring somewhere. It just split in half at the shoulder. I checked the glass afterward and it was an obvious flaw - the glass was way too thin at that point. I suspect that this is all about glass flaws because if the glass were perfect, the excess pressure would have ejected the cork. Has anyone had this issue with one of those cork openers that work by pumping air through a needle into the space below the cork?
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. I’ve opened lots of bottles uneventfully, and I stick to the ‘light trigger method’ to conserve argon, so I know this wasn’t an issue of me super-pressurizing the bottle.
