Hi! I am hoping for some advice. A close, and very generous, family member gifted me a Coravin 3. I didn’t ask for this, but was extremely excited to receive it (it seems like a miraculous invention). However, almost all of the wine I have and drink is under synthetic cork, and after having looked into this a bit it sounds like that means I will have very little (but not no!) use for this gift.
I saw some threads where a toothpick was recommended to be used (since the synthetic cork won’t close up), which I may try. I am wondering if I should get a Coravin Pivot to use often, and keep the 3 for when I have natural cork wines? This feels like a silly problem, but nonetheless I feel stuck. Thanks for your guidance to this not-very-experienced wine drinker!
You’re unlikely to find a lot of love for the Coravin in general around here, but it really depends on your drinking habits. What wines are you looking to preserve and how long does it take you to go through a bottle?
If I want to keep a Coravined synthetic cork longer than a few days, I’ll put a bit of glue or wax on the hole. Just be careful when putting needle in and out of synthetic cork.
Well, I drink mostly reds. I have a good amount of De Negoce red wines (syrah, zinfandel, cab, red blends, mostly). Otherwise random reds, new & old world. For how long it takes to go through a bottle – as it is, could be 5 days to a week or two. But if possible, it would be wonderful to be able to have multiple bottles going for 3-4 or more weeks (rather than having to finish one bottle before opening the next, which can feel limiting).
I guess one question I have is, would a Coravin Pivot be superior to using the original coravin but putting a toothpick (or glue or wax, as suggested by J Rock) over the hole?
As my mom always said, if it doesn’t ask to be fed it can stay. Put it in the closet and you’ll find time to use it when you can. It doesn’t take much space the store.
Thank you! I was thinking of trying just a round sticker (like are used for prices at yard sales) over the hole, or using the toothpick method I saw mentioned. Glue or wax is an interesting idea too.
That is the dream, naturally. It really depends on how sensitive you are to oxidation. I had hoped to be able to do something similar, but just found that the wine didn’t stay as fresh as I would like from glass to glass. Pulling one small glass to taste seemed to work pretty well, but especially as the bottle gets lower, the oxidation level increases rapidly.
Thanks! I guess for now I’ll just use the toothpick method…maybe that’ll work as well as the Pivot would have, which would save me having to have two gadgets. And, also, would save me the cost of the second one.
This drives me crazy when I watch people ‘gas’ wines. When I had my preservation device on the market I did displacement tests to see approximately the volume of argon that would be pumped in a numbered count (5, 6 etc.) based on the variation if empty space in the bottle.
Everything I was told by the experts at the gas producer and some people at UC Davis confirmed that the entire empty space needs to be filled with gas (argon) for maximum preservation. I frequently watch tasting room people pump just a little into a bottle no mater the remaining wine level.
Of course, those who think the whole exercise is a waste of time will just chuckle at this.
Oxygen isn’t being introduced, so that isn’t oxidation. Volatile aromatic compounds leave the wine for the headspace to find a new equilibrium in the bottle. As you get down in volume, the effect can become very noticeable. Depends on the wine, as late picking, hot or extended fermentation, barrel aging can all reduce these compounds.
An experiment to show the difference of something losing its volatile aromatics is cut a citrus in half and squeeze it into two containers. Nuke one to boiling, then let it cool. You can easily smell the difference. It’s why you add fresh basil to pasta sauce after it’s off the heat, and many other such things: to retain those volatiles.
The Coravin strategy that many use, and makes sense, is sample down to a certain volume, where the effect is negligible. After that, you pop the cork and drink the rest.
Gotta disagree with you there champ - im a pretty early Coravin adopter and i freaking love it (as i know plenty of others around here do as well). Total game changer for shorter-term preservation/drinking wine at home. Use it on corks less than 20(ish) years old, purge the needle before/after each use, and pop the cork when its down to 1/3 of the bottle and my hit rate is legit 98%+.
As for ‘synthetic’ corks, are you talking Diam and the like? Or actual ‘fake’ corks made out of plastic, etc? If its the latter…Coravin flat out wont work (cork won’t reseal). If it’s the former, it’s technically possible, but i definitely would not recommend it. Once you stab the needle through a diam cork, it is CRAZY hard to pull it out. Like…having to pull as hard as i possibly can to the point where im sure I’m going to snap the damn thing in half (and im not a small guy).
So in short…i agree you should stick to natural cork for your Coravin
