Have used it for several years now. I usually just hold the bottles for 1-4 weeks. When it works, it works well. The longest time was 1 year–a 2002 Dom. Laurent Vaucrains–and it worked exactly as advertised. But other times, I’ve had issues. Like others, I’ve had some capsules that expired too soon. I’ve solved this with plumber’s tape on the threads. The bigger problem has been leakage–almost always from the puncture hole. It really depends on the quality of the cork. Maybe 1 out of 4 leak? I’ve tried several solutions. Poster board putty, adhesive tape, melted candle wax. They’ve worked to some degree, but certainly not fool-proof. In the past year, I’ve tried inserting half a round toothpick into the puncture (an idea someone here posted). Not bad, but still not fool-proof. On several occasions the wine leaked past the toothpick. But I had a new idea today–use the toothpick, but rub it with a tiny bit of honey before inserting in the cork–to get a better seal. We’ll see what happens.
I just leave it vertical on the counter for 30 minutes before returning to the cellar horizontally. I’ll occasioanlly get a small amount of leakage this way, but not enough to drip down onto other bottles or anything.
If it’s consumed within a couple of weeks why not just keep it upright and thereby no leaks?
If the wine is leaking out, does that mean the gas is also escaping?? I dunno.
Not and being replaced with air. If there’s positive pressure still inside it might push out until it equalizes or gets a little closer at least. Also, if wine is covering the hole on the inside, wine is getting out, not argon.
I have no way to keep it upright at cellar temp (eurocave) and I don’t want it at refrigerator temp because it’s inconvenient to wait for it to warm up 
. Also, I like to have ~8 bottles “accessed” at once, certainly don’t want those in the fridge.
I’ve had pretty good luck with using the newer semi-opaque cling wrap stuff and just wrapping the cork and sealing to the top part of the neck. The biggest problem I have with Coravin is one that I don’t have any solution for and kind of makes it a non-starter for me, and that’s sediment. Especially with the fine sediment in burgs, it’s just so aggressive in the way it needs to be poured that it seems like there’s no way around the issue. I’ve been using Repour, which are good but definitely for a shorter timeline that what I’ve found Coravin useful for.
I poured off a half glass of a tasty Bourgogne rouge the other night, the bottle with coravin inserted was standing upright, and about 5 minutes later I heard the capsule discharge. So that little pour ended up costing about as much as a decent 1ere. Have others experienced this? Is there a workaround? Can I get CV to replace the unit even though I’ve had for many years?
At the price of the capsules, curious why they seem to have adopted the health club pricing model rather than the razor model.
Melt some candle wax over the insertion point and store bottle on its side. No wine is leaking out, no air is getting in.
Did you get a replacement cartridge cover from Coravin? The older models started having issues and Coravin was replacing those covers and we started having the cartridges discharge. E-mailed customer service at Coravin and they sent us the replacement cartridge cover. No problems since then.
As far as leakage from the insertion point, we had very few with the original needle. Unfortunately, we use the Coravin constantly for glass pours. We started folding needles on tough corks. We started ordering the larger, heavy duty needles from Coravin. Solved the folding needle issue but doubled the number of leaking punctures. We stand all bottles upright in the appropriate refrigeration unit after the Coravin has been used on them. No problems with the wine either.
New to Coravin and have tried it on about 15 bottles thus far. Loving the idea of having 5-6 different bottles on roster. It has immensely increased the fun of trying different wines.
So far has issue with leaking cork once - it was a Donnhoff Riesling. Good to hear about the candle wax tip.
This happened again last night… I inserted a new capsule, poured 2 glasses, put the Coravin back in the cabinet the day before yesterday. I did not hear any discharge. Yestrday when I wanted to use it, nothing left in the capsule, and I was able to twist it a bit tighter - I had made sure that it was tight. So far I have never been able to keep a capsule to last for more than 2 weeks, and in most cases only 2 or 3 glasses had been poured. Is it normal, or it’s actually a defective unit I got?
Soooo…anyone else have this happen the first time they tried to use the Coravin? I figure this is a problem but maybe someone out there has a solution?
What kind of closure were you attempting to pierce? AFAIK, if it’s any kind of synthetic cork, it’s a no go — natural cork only (also take care to remove capsule so teflon on needle doesn’t prematurely wear out).
No kidding! Bud, WTF happened here, ha! We need more details as there has to be a good story! Been using Coravin literally since they first released it and have never managed to mangle the needle, ha!
I wish there was a good story other than to quote my wife: “You have a strong force field.”
It’s a natural cork, not even particularly firm now that I’ve used a cork screw - 2012 Guillaume Gilles CdR, if it matters. This is what I did: took the Coravin out of the box, watched a couple of youtube videos to see how to use it, inserted the capsule, screwed the handle back on, positioned the chassis over the bottle, brought the needle down and it did this. # 30 #
Thats wild!! Something clearly went wrong at some point. Was the needle not centered on the cork or something (i.e. it pressed down against the glass vs. Cork)?