Coravin: Important Safety Notice

[ChrisU]

Excellent news! Buying the in-laws a Coravin immediately.

[Rick.T]

@ChrisU

Excellent news! Buying the in-laws a Coravin immediately.

[Carlos_Delpin]

Don’t see how a recall would help. The issue appears to be risk associated to faulty or weak bottles, not a Coravin product design issue per se.

[Peter_Tryba]

I’m curious to see the person willing and able to inject enough into a bottle of still wine to make it explode. Also, that must be one BAD ASS cork to stay in the neck while the pressure increases inside the bottle (brand new Nomacorc? Champagne?).

[scott_c]

@Jens Bordasch

A BIG chance for Pungo now if they are clever…their product doesn’t work with over-pressure…

Yup. I find it interesting that literally one of the first things the Pungo founders told me when I met them last year was that their product doesn’t cause a build up of pressure and some day a Coravin was going to explode a bottle. If they knew that, it’s impossible that Coravin didn’t know that, in which case there should be a lot of questions regarding the liability of bringing a potentially dangerous product to market.

[M_A_T_T_H_A_R_T_L_E_Y]

@Randy Bowman

We have at least 10 wine reps and 10 winery reps using them on a daily basis. Add 10 or so winebars and restaurants using them here in Napa. Our last rep brought in 9 bottles for tasting, using the Coravin on each one, while complaining about the number and cost of cartridges he uses per week. I’d go with millions.

It’s a moot point. Coravin has halted sales because of the exploding bottles.

There is absolutely zero chance a million bottles have been injected by a coravin

[David_Glasser]

@Peter Tryba

I’m curious to see the person willing and able to inject enough into a bottle of still wine to make it explode. Also, that must be one BAD ASS cork to stay in the neck while the pressure increases inside the bottle (brand new Nomacorc? Champagne?).

This. I suspect the exploding bottles were due to holding the lever too long, perhaps combined with a “hot” argon capsule.

Nevertheless, from a liability and PR standpoint I don’t see how Coravin could have done anything less than put out a safety warning and some sort of “fix” to mitigate risk. Greg Lambrecht’s background is as a pharmaceutical rep. I bet he knew this even before talking to his lawyers. Sending out a neoprene sleeve is certainly less costly than recalling your entire production and offering refunds.

I wonder how many people will actually use the sleeve. I probably won’t, as short bursts of gas seem to present a vanishingly low risk.

[John_Webber]

It would be useful if they posted the wines that reportedly exploded.

[Markus_S]

Hey, April 1st was a couple months back!

[Joe_B]

@John Webber

It would be useful if they posted the wines that reportedly exploded.

Was thinking the same thing.

[Bill_Moore]

It’ll be interesting to see how restaurants cope, as many of them have revised their wine programs to incorporate the Coravin. I suppose they could use the sleeves and just make sure not to pour anything in front of customers!

[David_Glasser]

This was just posted by Greg Lambrecht over on the eRP board. Public service, fair use, yada yada:

Hello all. Tough news for us, but we will recover. It was an upgrade of our warnings we felt was important to make. In the very few cases we have seen, it wasn’t user error or the Coravin, but rather the bottle itself. Turns out, cracked, chipped, or flawed bottles can break during use of Coravin. I never saw this during my 10 years of development, but with the number of Coravins out there and the number of bottles accessed, we seem to be finding the very few bottles that are damaged enough they can break during access, but haven’t complete broken from their original injury. Seems like 1:78,000 bottles fall into this category. The customers involved have been great, most sending us the bottles and their Coravin for analysis. Coravins have all been operating normally. The bottles had all been damaged or flawed before access. We are going to be getting sleeves to everyone as they really work. I can’t thank you all enough for your support. More information as I get it.

[David_Glasser]

I hope this goes well for them. They seem to be handling it well. If they go under (which I doubt), those of us who own the gadgets will have to find a workaround for the argon capsules. I know I’ve seen that posted somewhere…

[Ken_V]

@David Glasser

This was just posted by Greg Lambrecht over on the eRP board. Public service, fair use, yada yada:

They’d better allow it. I only bought a Coravin because Parker endorsed it. Charlie, make a note to include RP in our lawsuit.

[Jacob_Terrell]

@Nick Ryan

@JKim

So, let me get this straight. The action plan doesn’t fix the actual issue of bottles breaking, but addresses the laceration possibility with a neoprene sleeve. However, your bottles can still break when using a Coravin. Awesome solution, Coravin team. So stupid. Refund everyone their money on your defective, potentially dangerous product.

I assume you’re being facetious. This whole incident is typical safety paranoia and nanny-state idiocy at its worst. Seven bottles have burst out of how many millions now opened with Coravin? Should we also force people to buy Kevlar-reinforced safety glasses with every bottle of Champagne so they don’t take out an eye? Do they actually think a single person is going to put a freaking sleeve on every bottle they open with Coraving, let alone servers at high-end restaurants? What a farce.

Exactly.

The problem is not the device but a faulty bottle. If anyone were to be sued (damn lawyers) it should be the bottle manufacture.

And I agree with your sentiment that this is just safety paranoia. Millions of bottles have been coravin’d and this is a pretty small segment.

[amjohnstone]

@Xavier Lavoipierre

“Safety paranoia and nanny-state idiocy”?! Seriously? First, the so-called “nanny state” had nothing to do with it. Coravin has “voluntarily stopped selling and shipping” the systems. Second, Coravin has “received” seven reports including one report of a laceration. That doesn’t mean that numerous other bottles haven’t also burst. Typically there are more incidents than reports. Besides, stuff like this is always “safety paranoia” until it happens to you.

Coravin’s notice expressly references the CPSC, which suggests that they’ve been in discussions with the government. Having been involved in exactly that sort of discussion with that agency, Coravin most likely is taking action because it believes it must do so otherwise the CPSC will demand it (and more besides). And the CPSC may do so anyway.

[alan_weinberg]

@Jens Bordasch

A BIG chance for Pungo now if they are clever…their product doesn’t work with over-pressure…

This is exactly what Burt from Pungo warned me (and others) about the Coravin. Hope the Pungo gets to market soon.
alan

[Peter_Kleban]

1:78,000 bottles fail and there have been 7 failures. That’s over 500,000 bottles Coravined up to now.

[Jens_Bordasch]

Some of you mentioned that the problem is with the bottle maker and not Coravin…I do not agree here. Bottles made for still wine are not meant to be used with over-pressure and I don’t see a reason why a bottle maker should test their bottles accordingly. Although I don’t know I’m quite sure that there a rules/regulations/tests for Champagner bottles…but not for still wine.

So, if Coravin puts a bottle under high(er) pressure (than normal) then I do see resonsibility on their side.

Beside this, I’m really surprised this happens (bursting bottles). I also read comments from the Pungo guys saying that one advantage of their system is that they don’t put the bottle on high pressure…at that time I though this is meaningless because wine bottles will be strong enough to hold this pressure…well, seems they (Pungo) have a great point here. I really hope they can take advantage of this as they don’t seem to be clever marketing guys (at least not on Conravin’s level).

[Chris_Blum]

@kylemittskus

They’re sending everyone a wine koozie?