In their experience as they tested out many suppliers, that is not the case for many. They stand behind the one they are selling. In terms of what other people are buying more cheaply on Amazon, who knows?
Pungo.
Is Pungo now widely commercially available?
Exactly. Itās like manufacturerās outsourcing to China: the spec you gave them to produce may not be exactly the one you get back. Money and profit is a great motivator to cut costs wherever you can, especially if people have a hard time to figure it out.
I am amused at the people who want to desperately save 25 cents of argon per glass to preserve a beverage worth many, many times that.
I too had assumed a razors and blades model for Coravin, and there must be some aspect of that. However, one doesnāt need to spend much time with Greg to understand why they made the argon choice they did. (And a hint: it is not to lock in customers and profits. It is ensure that your wine is actually preserved.)
Again, fair warning. There is a lot of āArgonā sold out there that is either not argon or not very pure and therefore not as preservative. Buyer beware.
Ill stick to the Coravin cartridge.
Iām hoping for a bit of quality control.
I will even use it on cheaper bottles (even under $20). If I spend a few extra dollars on a given bottle using the Coravin, it is well worth it because the waste over time in undrunk wine dumped and therefore more new bottles opened is many, many multiples of what I have spent on cartridges. Not even close. I figure the value to me is perhaps 10x (or even more) on average based on using it on a range of wines from $15-150.
As a result, I donāt really understand the cost issues people raiseā¦or saving a tiny bit by using other cartridges.
It seems as though it would have been possible to design the system to use standard cartridges, warn people about the importance of high quality argon, recommend particular sources (or provide yourself), and let people decide. If they notice a difference and are willing to pay the additional cost, thatās great. If they canāt tell a difference or itās too small to them to justify the higher expense, that would seem to be fine, as well. Arenāt people trusted to make their own decisions?
Every company that designs a proprietary system to attempt to lock you into buying supplies from them has an argument why itās in the best interest of the consumer.
-Al
+1. I just put a non-Epson black ink cartridge in my Epson printer (~$8 for THREE vs. ~$38 for ONE) and it made me go through many hoops via the software on the computer before it would even let me print (āAre you REALLY REALLY REALLY sure you want to use this inferior ink which may damage your printer and hasten the heat-death of the universe?āā¦), then it took like 30 minutes to print the first page with lots of clanking and flapping going on inside the little fella. Good (great) news is it works fine with no subsequent delays.
I love my Coravinā¦
I think they are trying to use a razor blade model for the devices, but that doesnāt bother me. They invented a great product and ought to be able to make some money from it. The argon isnāt cheap, but it is not bad when you look at the per glass price.
Thanks for all your input. After reading it, especially Danās, Iāll stick with Coravinās cartridges.
Thatās why I destroyed my last inkjet printer with a sledgehammer and bought a laser printer whose cartridges last me like 1,000,000,000 pages.
Not sure - but if they are run donāt walk to buy one.
Also, the Pungo cartridges are top-notch quality argon, but generic and less expensive. They work just fine in the Coravin when the black plastic cap if transferred.
How much are the Pungo carts? The Coravin carts cost me $10 per. Iām curious what the difference amounts to on a per use basis. Are we talking about something like 20 cents per use differential or is it much more?
Iām not sure of current pricing or availability, but last time I checked the Pungo cartridges were $40 per 10-pack, so substantially less expensive. My understanding is that the cartridges are standard 6.5g threaded cartridges from iSi. I canāt guarantee any of this remains accurate, but you can PM the Pungo guys to check.
Yes, cartridges are still $39.95 per 10-pack, so $4.00/piece.
The manufacturer is iSi, and theyāre made in Austria to very high standards. The challenge with these cartridges is that theyāre made by drawing what starts off as a flat steel disk into a long, hollow cylinder, which requires a fair amount of lubrication. Even if you have the purest argon available, unless you thoroughly clean the cylinders post forging, the gas will come out tasting like oil. Itās this cleaning process that largely separates manufactures - cheaper suppliers donāt clean their cartridges nearly as thoroughly. Weāre convinced that these are the best cartridges you can buy.
Most of our users get around 5-6 bottles per cartridge, which works out to about $.16/glass (5 bottles x 5 glasses / bottle). If you pull the cork for the last glass, you can get a few more servings out of cartridge, but we rarely do because who can ever find that cork puller?
Weāve delayed launching our website because weāre still working through a backlog (thanks to the Berserkers who have purchased units from our first run and who are on the wait list), but we do have argon in stock. If you would like a box, PM me.
Eric, did Greg share the name of their Argon supplier and the specific ID of the gas itself? When my unit was more viable (pre-Coravin and pre-Pungo) I did a lot of research with gas suppliers and gas science experts. Iām sure there are quality differences in Argon but I was convinced that, in percentage of purity terms, they are extremely minimal. To a great degree it had to do with āchain of custodyā of the containers more than of the gas itself (ie-assurance that the gas purity wasnāt compromised during its travel from original source through to the final container). I picked a winery/food-grade Argon that came with a seal on the large cylinder I used. Its purpose was to verify that the container had been properly cleaned before being filled by the original supplier, and not compromised later.
All that understood, I have to feel that the vast majority of end users would not notice the impact of a less-than-pristine Argon being used, so long as it was a quality gas. I mean I recall the supplier stating that one was 99.7% pure, compared with 99.9%ā¦ or something close to that. But, then, Iām one who has always wondered how many people can actually smell/taste at a level that would detect some of these differences. There are several very expensive units out there (like Napa technologies, Enomatic, and Wine Emotion) that use Argon and there are people that say they can tell when a wine has been under more than the original ullage volume of Argon. I canāt, and I can only marvel an one who can.
Thanks for the details. Can I use these with the Coravin?
+1. I like my Pungo a lot.
Also, many Coravin users probably donāt purge the needle before inserting it. This only reduces the purity of Argon in the wine bottle the moment the needle full of air goes in. Argon being heavier than air, even those who do purge probably are not able to completely avoid some air from slipping up into the needle in the moment before itās inserted into the cork.
Yet despite this bit of extra air getting in to the bottle and corresponding reduction in Argon concentration these bottles seem to do OK.
Considering this, it would make a lot of sense that itās not the extremity of Argon source purity thatās at issue but, as Morgan says, the capsules the Argon is being packaged in and associated noxious oil residue left over from capsule manufacture.