How does it work, you ask? When the Coravin System is in place, a thin hollow needle is inserted through the cork to extract the wine. You don’t need to remove the foil, or the cork, to access the wine. The bottle is then pressurised with Argon, an inert gas that’s in the air we breathe. Once the bottle has been pressurised, the wine flows through the needle and pours into your glass. When the Coravin System and its needle are removed, the cork reseals itself. The remaining wine never comes in contact with oxygen, and continues to evolve naturally.

The Coravin system was invented by Greg Lambrecht, a man with a background in physics, mechanical engineering, nuclear power and medical devices.

“I fell in love with wine as a young man and had amassed an at-home collection that began collecting dust while my wife was pregnant. I still wanted to enjoy great glasses of wine, but didn’t want to commit to full bottles. For me, wine is a thinking beverage – it’s something you contemplate, experience side by side… So here I am, an expert in needles. In particular, needles that don’t do damage to things. So I came up with an idea to pass a non-coring needle through the cork while it was still in the bottle. My hope was that I could then return the remaining wine to my cellar, and enjoy it again and again, whenever I desired. I’m a science geek, so what followed was a decade of development and testing until I had a system that left the cork in place, but still delivered great glasses of wine, indistinguishable from untouched bottles.”

“It is to wine what downloading is to music.” – Charlotte Sager-Wilde, Mission, Wine Bar & Restaurant, UK

“Gadget of the Year: It could have been the iPhone, iPad2 or a Leica D-Lux Camera – but it’s none of them. I looked for a gadget that is unique and solves a problem never solved before. My hands-down favourite is the Coravin Wine System.” – Phil Baker, San Diego Source

“Nothing I know of preserves wine in an opened or ‘accessed’ bottle for years as this system does.” – Jancis Robinson, Wine Writer & Critic

“This product is nothing short of amazing for both restauranteurs and wine-lovers alike.” – Joe Bastiantich, Restauranteur & Wine Expert