Here’s a Coravin story for you.

Tonight I went out to the cellar and grabbed a 2015 Quivet Kenefick Ranch Syrah. I brought it in the kitchen and before I put the corkscrew to it I noticed quite a bit of headspace. The ullage was bout 5” below the neck of the bottle. I chuckled, snapped a few pictures and looked at the capsule which hd a couple Coravin pokes in it. Back in 2016 I did some tastings for Mike Smith during harvest when he didn’t have time due to his workload. The bottle was likely one that was used in a tasting and Mike would occasionally say, just take the rest of the bottles home with you. Normally I would drink them but somehow this one ended up in the cellar racking.

Now the fun part. Corvined 4 years ago, 1/3 of the bottle empty, how would the wine show?

• 2015 Quivet Cellars Syrah Kenefick Ranch - USA, California, Napa Valley (2/10/2020)
  Here’s a weird one. This bottle was 1/3 empty. Coravined for a tasting back in 2016 and mistakenly put back in the cellar.

Deep dark purple, nose loaded with blackberry, same fruit pours over the palate still quite rich and fruity. Lots of chalky minerality, crushed rocks and tobacco leaf. Chewy finish laced with chocolate covered coffee beans.
This picked up right where it left off 4 years ago. When I saw the Coravin holes I figured it would have gone south by now. I must have used it correctly eh? Drinks wonderfully but really you don’t need to be in a rush to pop one of these. They are not going anywhere anytime soon.

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Coravin works! Will we get to the point where we sample our wines annually to see how they are developing?

Great feedback. I haven’t had any negative experiences yet, but this one is really pushing the time!

This really comes down to the individual wine - chemistry, dissolved oxygen levels, etc - and how the wine was stored.

For every one of these, there are endless stories of wines coravined that do not stand the test of time.

Cheers.

I’m not advocating waiting 4 years between tastes, just sharing that in this particular case it had no ill effects on the wine whatsoever.

That was the thought when it as introduced but there is plenty of real world field testing that has shown this to not be a wise decision.

Plenty of those endless stories will be here shortly Great to hear a good one tho…

I’ve never had an issue. Took a glass from 2011 Insignia and two years later was still drinking great.

After 3 years of using Coravin on a regular basis, I couldn’t detect any change for any wine within 6 months. There are some that stayed the same even longer than 1 year, but some seemed a little off. So now, to be safe, 6 months is my maximum time.

Nice Brian!

Another Coravin fan here. To me it seems like the success factor really depends on the integrity of the cork. I probably have a 98% win rate over the past handful of years (was a pretty early adopter) on bottles around the 10 year and younger mark. I dont gamble on older wines/corks and typically pop it open when there’s about a glass left in the bottle. Nice option to have when you want ‘just one more’ or are looking to sample multiple bottles in a night.

Same here, a big Coravin fan. It has allowed me to have multiple bottles on the roster and through the course of the night do a mini pairing of my own. I normally don’t have a bottle stay open for more than 6 months.

I am not in the camp that for every good report there a four bad ones. I have used this device on hundreds of bottles and have had very few bad experiences. I think it is more likely that good experiences are common and boring and not reported. Bad experiences are infuriating like corked, cooked or oxidized wine and more frequently reported. When there is a real problem (white burgundy) it tends to really stand out.

Had my first “bad bottle” coravin experience, but it was likely all my fault. Didn’t purge, left it upright afterwards, and took too much out. It was a SB PN and it tasted like it had been left open for a few days. Not horrible, but not nearly as nice was what we’d coravin’d a month earlier.

That said, I’ve had nothing but luck on dozens of bottles ranging in age from 30 years to recent and stored for up to a year afterwards before I checked again.

I also check the cork afterwards and if it looks like it didn’t seal, I usually open it in a few days. I guess I could recork (Lord knows I have enough of them).

Just be diligent about purging, cleaning, and checking the seal. I follow the 1:1 rule. 1 hour upright for every hour the needle was in (minimum of an hour) and then on its side and check for leaks.

I put the needle in long enough to pull however much wine I need into give everyone a taste then pull it out. 1-2 minutes tops.

I try do to that (especially if I’m just checking on a bottle), but sometimes I have guests, or a meal to cook and it stays in longer than I intended. Even if it’s only in a minute, I leave it upright for an hour to give the cork time to reseal.

I hear ya. My point was that I have oftentimes had different experiences with Coravin’d wines and know many that have also experience wines not lasting as long as they had hoped they would. Just showing a counter-point to your point, my friend.

You gonna be at Falltacular again? Hope to see you there . . .

Had a similar experience with a 2012 Cayuse Cailloux that I had coravin’ed two years earlier.
Maybe the slightest touch oxidized, but still going strong.

The only thing I’ve really noticed issues with consistently is Grenache (presumably being sensitive to oxidiation)

An unfinished bottle? How odd.

Does the success rate or longevity depend on how much wine was removed? For example, is a bottle where 4 ounces were removed going to have better odds of holding up for a year than another where half the bottle was removed?

Years ago, my mom got me a vinegar making kit with a nice crock and starter. We quickly realized that we never had the prime ingredient for vinegar . . . leftover wine.

The vinegar crock is now our cork bin.