Exploding bottles. Flying shards of glass. Razor-sharp, splinters everywhere. Scenes from a horror flick? Or an Italian restaurant?
A number of media outlets had their fun earlier this year with these disturbing images, when it was reported that the wine preservation device, Coravin, caused bottles to fail tableside. Descriptions like the ones above are just a tad overblown and grossly misleading.
The ingeniously designed and staggeringly popular gadget pierces a wine bottle’s cork with a thin needle and displaces the wine with neutral argon gas. This allows the user to pour wine from the bottle without introducing the wine to the harmful effects of oxygen. Wine lovers, restaurants and distributors can sample and sell wines they would not otherwise pull the cork on.
Credit: Gil Kulers
Credit: Gil Kulers
“Coravin is the most transformational and exciting new product for wine lovers that has been developed/invented in the last 30-plus years,” say Robert M. Parker Jr. wine writer and critic in a testimonial for the company. “This is a killer device. It is going to revolutionize drinking wine and being able to access multiple wines in your cellar and have the choice of as many as you want.”
I don’t always agree with Parker, but he’s right this time. I’ve been using the Coravin in my dining room for 10 months with great success. I’ve poured 11-year old Australian grenaches and other wines off the beaten path—wines that I knew guests would love, if I could only get them to try a splash of it. I’ve also poured glasses of rare Burgundies for wine lovers who wanted something a little more interesting than my by-the-glass offerings.
But what about those exploding bottles? That’s the question I had for Greg Lambrecht, Coravin’s inventor when I talked to him in July
“There were never any exploding bottles,” Lambrecht said. “The first notice we had was in February [2014]. The bottom of a bottle fell off. It was determined that the bottle had been dropped and cracked or chipped.”
Two more similar reports and Lambrecht sent out warnings to all those who had purchased Coravins to inspect bottles before using Coravin. He also changed the packaging to warn consumers to inspect all bottles before using his device.
Lambrecht explained that Coravins are limited to 1.5 atmospheres of pressure. All wine bottles can withstand 10 to 20 atmospheres. If there are any cracks or defects in the bottle, the Coravin will cause the bottle to fall apart and create a mess. “But there were never any exploding bottles and shards of glass flying everywhere as I’ve heard reported.”
Despite the warnings to inspect bottles before using the Coravin, there were seven more broken bottles reported in May 2014. People continued using the Coravin on damaged bottles, according to Lambrecht.
Erring on the side of extreme caution, Coravin decided to stop sales and asked its nearly 50,000 customers to discontinue using the devices. He also approached the Consumer Product Safety Commission to evaluate the problem and help with a solution. The CPSC reviewed Lambrecht’s testing and performed similar analyses. Its conclusion was the same as Lambrecht’s. Bottles weakened by flaws, cracks or chips, typically caused by mishandling, can fail.
The fix, which was endorsed by the CPSC, was to send neoprene sleeves to all Coravin owners. The sleeves fit over the bottles to contain glass should the bottle fail. The sleeves are included with all new devices sold.
The response in the wine community was not one of alarm, but of bemusement over what it considered an overreaction. “Many people thought we overacted,” Lambrecht said. “A lot of people said that it was the users or that it was thin-glass bottles made in China. It was neither of those things. It had just been bottles that were dropped and one bottle that had an unmelted piece of glass in its shoulder that fell out.”
About one bottle in every 50,000 to 70,000 can fail with the use of the Coravin device, Lambrecht estimates. Those numbers could be reduced if more people inspected their bottles before inserting the Coravin into the bottle, which Lambrecht strongly suggests.
Since the recall, sales are as strong as ever, Lambrecht said. Why? You only have to look at the cellar of just about any wine lover, who inevitably harbors dozens of bottles he or she is afraid to open. Lambrecht recalls a letter from an 83-year-old customer. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a few thousand bottles in my cellar, but I was never opening them because I didn’t know if they were ready. No longer. Now, I’m down in my cellar all the time trying the wines. I’m finding ones that were gone, but some that are perfect. I’m drinking the perfect ones.”
Drink more perfect wines. Hmmm. Sounds good to me.
Gil Kulers is a sommelier and maitre d’ for an Atlanta country club. You can reach him at gil.kulers@winekulers.com.
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