The latest episode of the GuildSomm podcast is with Greg Lambrecht, inventor of Coravin. It’s a great listen. But I couldn’t help noticing the way he talks about using Coravin. He implies that there are certain techniques to get the best out of it, but doesn’t go into what these techniques might be.
For example, he talks about teaching wine distributors and importers “little tricks” about how to use Coravin. He goes on to describe visiting South Korea and seeing somms there using Coravin “as well as I do- I don’t know how they figured it out”. Again, seems to me that the implication is that there are certain ways for optimal Coravin usage that might not be immediately obvious.
The only concrete advice he gives on the podcast is to wash out the spout with hot water to prevent off-flavors from brett and saccharomyces. I’ve always rinsed out the nozzle, but I’ve never used hot water. Seems like an easy straightforward thing that I can start doing.
What other tips might he be referring to? I’ve been concerned about how best to clean the internal mechanism, and in fact I’ve posted about it here, though I didn’t get many replies. Since Greg Lambrecht didn’t provide many of his own tips, I’d love to hear yours!
We’ve used them for years because I like Burgs and my wife likes OR Pinots- Coravining lets us each enjoy our own bottles, but its not a miracle preserver, at least in our hands. Days of fresh pours? Pretty good results. Weeks? Nah.
One thing we do now is remove the Coravin unit from the cork at the end of dinner when the bottles go back to the cellar. The wines seem to stay fresher that way to my palate. This is what the instructions recommend too.
But for years we would leave the apparatus stuck into the bottle for days; I was underwhelmed with the results. I assume (but don’t know) that there is air seepage into the bottle over time when the unit is left inserted.
We use the regular or the bigger bore needles, which give a faster pour, (don’t judge, when its wine o’clock, we are in a hurry!). A downside is they leave a bigger hole to reseal in the cork and I assume run a bigger risk of air seeping in. You can use the thinnest needle they have, but they are slow to pour and prone to bending in a hard cork, like a DIAM.
An editorial comment: if the device was such a stellar advance in keeping wine fresh in the bottle, would the inventor need his “little tricks”? That rings of marketing to me.
Objectively, the concept seems sound-Leave a layer of inert argon gas on top of the wine, exclude oxygen. In practice it may not work 100%, but it seems to help enough that I’ll keep using it.
Interesting, because we’ve had great results for months or even years after removing a glass from a bottle with the Coravin. We just finished up two approximately half filled bottles that we have used the Coravin to “siphon” off a glass or so at a time over the years, and we had not touched either of the bottles in at least 18 months and I think it was more like pre-pandemic the last time we touched these. We finally opened them up to finish and get them out of the way, and they were both just as good as new (EDIT: meaning “newly opened for the first time”).
We don’t however leave the needle stuck in the cork as you mentioned doing. We’ve always removed the needle and put the Coravin and the bottle back away. You mentioned larger bore needle, but we don’t have different size needles and haven’t seen/heard of them so I can’t tell you which one we are using. We’ve always just used the needle that it came with, that’s the only one we have. I guess it’s possible one or both of those in combination account for the difference in results? Regardless, for us it has been a miracle preserver, so I assumed it was for everyone. Shame that’s not the case
That seems intuitively right, but gas doesn’t behave like a liquid and form layers like that. Gases will diffuse in a closed space until they are evenly distributed throughout the space.
Are you storing bottles on their sides after puncturing the cork? If so, do you lay them down right away or have them upright for a time first? Does that matter?
Incorrect. Gases of different densities can absolutely layer on top of one another with higher density gases sitting below lower density gases, just like liquids. Gases are miscible with one another, so turbulence will easily mix them up (as opposed to immiscible liquids like oil and water), but in an otherwise non-turbulent environment gases will layer. Diffusion does occur as a result of temperature dependent molecular motion, but this happens slowly.
I’m fairly certainly I’m right here, and that I’m properly recalling my P-Chem and Fluid Dynamics courses from years ago. But someone feel free to correct me if I’ve got this wrong.
As Noah explained, that isn’t true. That’s why it’s very dangerous to fall into a fermentation vat – the air at the surface is mostly CO2. Years ago I was at Ravenswood and they had plastic bins of freshly harvested grapes outside that had begun ferment and the surface was covered in dead bees – obviously because of the CO2.
Several things I think people aren’t factoring in:
Wines vary in how easily they oxidize. Grenache-based wines will deteriorate much more quickly than, say, cabernet or syrah, or a sweet wine.
Temperature is also factor. Do you leave your Coravined wine out on the counter in summer time (e.g., high 70s)? Or refrigerate it or put it at cellar temperature?
Wines that have relatively high amounts of VA (most wines have some, but some older wines and Old World wines start out with a lot) can develop more noticeable VA levels pretty quickly when exposed to just a bit more air.
Oxidation isn’t the only factor at work here. Volatile aroma compounds will begin to evaporate into the headspace once you’ve drawn off wine, so the wine can lose aromas. The more you draw out, the bigger a factor this will be.
I have tried both the regular and larger size needles. I did have some leakage using the larger bore needle and went back to the slower pouring smaller needle that came with the unit.
I have not tried going past a few weeks, but it serves it’s purpose.
I too would be interested in learning any tricks that could help to Preserve “better”.
I’ll bite. I have a few tricks that have served me well over the years.
Use the smaller vintage needle for everything. The pour is a bit slower, but the corks seal up much faster and more completely.
Release a bit of Argon just before inserting the needle into the cork. This will expel any oxygen that was in the needle, and prevent it from entering the bottle.
Rinse the Coravin with hot water after every use.
Pull the needle half way out of the cork, let it sit for a few minutes, then remove the needle completely. The lower portion of the cork will have formed a seal before the needle was completely removed.
That last bullet is the one I haven’t really tried before and probably a great idea. I haven’t trusted the Coravin for more than 2-3 weeks after tapping and will be interested to see if this makes a difference.
use the search, you will see a video where i demonstrated some tricks to using the device and getting the best out of it. It is not a perfect device but there are a few things you can do to have a better success.
Yes, we lay them on their sides after we siphon off a glass or two. I’d say we lay them down “right away” in the sense that after we’re done or don’t want any more. So that may be a couple minutes or a couple hours after we first siphon some off. It would be that same night anyway; I can’t remember waiting till morning, for example, but memories being fallible, it’s possible that we let some stand up for a period. I can’t speak to how/if it would matter if we routinely left them standing up afterwards unfortunately.
I tried that once and found that the next time I stuck a needle into the bottle it had to go right through the wax. I worried about a little wax getting shoved into the bottle (not a big deal I suppose) and the wax potential getting caught inside and jamming up the needle. Have you been able to tell if the wax helps at all? And have you had issues with clogging the needle?
