Perhaps this is a bit aggressive a question, but I am curious if those who have purchased a Coravin would purchase again given their experience. To be upfront, I’ve purchased one but have not yet opened it.
I’m happy with mine so “yes”. I use it every time I know I’m only going to drink maybe 1 glass. So I don’t use it every week but several times a month. Once I CV a bottle I try to finish it in 2 weeks but some have gone longer. Zero issues to date with oxidized wine but I did have a PN a couple of weeks ago that had opened up some since the first CV.
As a single guy who tends to buy expensive wine, I would go so far to say it’s been a life-changing invention for me. I used to have bottles pile up because I couldn’t open them without letting half or more go to waste. Now I can enjoy my collection anytime I want in whatever quantity I choose; do infinite vertical or horizontal comparisons; and follow a wine’s evolution over time. (It is not true that bottles only last for a few weeks after tasting–if you use the device and store the wine properly, you can absolutely put it back in the cellar. I’ve gone back to the well after 5 months and had wine taste perfectly fresh, and I presume one can wait for longer than that). Every time I run out of gas I shed a tear.
I largely agree with Dan. The Coravin has completely changed my wine consumption approach for nights when I just want a glass of wine after work. If I get home on a random Tuesday and want a glass of something good I can now do so without worry. For example I just had a glass of 2011 Littorai Roman Vineyard Pinot with dinner tonight. Before Coravin I would not have opened a bottle knowing I just wanted a glass. So this is life-changing for me too.
I have had issues with wine oxidizing a bit after a couple of weeks. Some bottles have stayed fresh for a long time, but others have not. I would note I am very sensitive to oxidization though and have never liked the taste of an open bottle even on the second day (with some exceptions for wines that were just far too young upon opening). I now try to drink through anything I’ve accessed within a couple of weeks. I also would never Coravin any truly special bottle for that reason. But as a way to drink good wine a glass at the time over a couple of weeks, the Coravin has been amazing for me.
I don’t regret buying and would do it again. However, I am using it for multi week consumption, not months or years. I do think that the wine changes at the six to eight week mark. Regardless, best preservation product in the land.
It’s a game changer for dessert wines and Ports. My wife and I have no problem finishing what we open for dinner.
I agree with everything you said, and I use it in the same way.
Just ordered four more and 36 more 2 packs for gas and a extra needle … Ya think I like ours…
It has for my business made me $300 the first day just in saved wine… Not counting the increase in sales due to the perception I really care about serving great fresh wine and I do…
Look for my thread soon … And I will need about twelve volunteers who own this gizmo … I want to make history … More to come … Look for the thread … Soon… ‘Coravin Across America Charity Event’ it will be fun …
Cheers … !!!
Same exact experience, except that my box is somewhere in the garage…probably lost foreeever. But it’s not Coravin’s fault, I have tons of shit in my garage that I’ve never used.
Me as well.
I’m veering a little here, but I read a point (I think Lewis Perdue) about Coravin that doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of play here. Even if the system is perfect with regard to oxidation, the extra, argon filled, headspace created is still more atmosphere into which aromatics can diffuse. If that’s the case, it seems like the aromatic degradation would have less to do with the elapsed time since the first pull and more to do with the number of pulls and the amount of headspace created.
I think it will be very interesting to see how these bottles age. For saving a half-full bottle of wine, there are lots of options if the goal is to keep it until the next day. If your goal is to put it back in the cellar for a year or so, that is a very different situation and the chemistry will be interesting to experience. Extra head space, different surface area, etc.
I’m a huge fan as well. I’m enjoying bottles that have been sitting idle more often - it’s great to be able to take out a glass, or even a half bottle when my wife and I don’t want to drink a full bottle or want to sample more than one wine. I’ve also been far more inclined to enjoy some wine at home when my wife isn’t interested, since I can just grab a glass.
Absolutely, love it.
As my wife doesnt drink at the moment due to babies, its been a fantastic tool to preserve wine for a few weeks and allow me to have multiple different wines in one night.
Great tool - would definitely buy again for the reasons stated above.
I typically save the bottles for between a week and 3 months. Most of the time (perhaps all but 2-3 of a couple dozen) the wine has seemed fresh and without noticeable degredation - a few bottles though have seemed noticeably advanced - not dead or spoiled but perhaps as if they had been opened the day before (as opposed to a couple months before).
Unfortunately, because of the couple of advanced bottles, I am wary of opening top tier wines (unless I intend to consume them relatively soon) or wines older than 15 yrs until I have more data points… There was not an obvious reason that it didn’t work for those bottles - likely just the variability of corks and while that is not Coravin’s fault, it does create a potential variability in the performance of their device and potential uncertainty. I would love to have full confidence that a bottle would last for a number of years without issue but not yet.
However, it is well worth it even if it remains a device that I continue to use as I have been using it.
For those of you complaining about oxidation over the medium term, can I propose a simple test? Take two bottles of the same wine. Pour out a glass from one via Coravin, making sure to wash the device and press the trigger once before it touches the bottle. After use, store both bottles on their sides for however long you think is necessary. Then open both with a normal corkscrew, pour them into glasses, and see if you can tell which is which.
I, for one, have been drinking from the same bottles for almost 6 months now. In what I imagine are ~50 bottles I’ve used it on–including some expensive, old, fragile wines–I have had one single mishap with a wine that changed between pours. I was storing it upright and had drank from it about 4 times, and on the 5th try over about 6 weeks it turned into an oxidized mess. Since then I’ve been more careful about proper usage and have had no further incidents, including with bottles that are coming up on the 6-month mark.
Yes, blind Coravin comparisons would be the way to really go here. You don’t have to burn classic wines to do it, it should be just as telling to do side by side with good $20 bottles or whatever. I hope some of you with Coravins will experiment with this at future blind tastings – maybe include one Coravin flight (better still, without telling people that’s what it is) of two bottles each of Wine A and Wine B, with one newly opened and one Coravined 6 months ago of each wine.
I think Coravin is a great idea. The only reason I don’t own one is that frankly my storage is overstuffed, and switching my habits to drinking partial bottles of wine and re-storing the rest would be counterproductive to me. Were that not to be the case, I’d be all over it.
I definitely need to get one of these. If I understand the process correctly, it raises another point. To those who have it, has it changed your drinking habits regarding screwcapped wines? If you just want to go for the glass this way, do you now find it more likely that you’ll pass up the Loring pinot or similar that can’t be Coravined and go with something that has a cork?
Love mine and wouldn’t hesitate to buy again!
Great question. I think now I will be ordering one. uggghhhhh.