I think my Bride gets more excited about gadgets than I do, and while I had thought that I had talked her out of a purchase, I guess I was wrong.  Over the years, she has or others have bought me exotic versions of the traditional corkscrew, and somehow to this day, my two favorites are still a perfect screw embedded in a petrified wine root that requires a lot of manual labor to pull the cork straight out of the bottle, and my favorite “waiter’s corkscrew” that is the easiest and the most compact.  There are a couple of the “Rabbit” style units here, as well as an electric/electronic corkscrew, and you would think that I am a caveman or a Neanderthal hiding in plain sight in today’s society.

I mean ever since my Bride saw a Coravin system being used, she was excited and rightfully so.  The concept is ingenious and it looks relatively easy to use.  I have been to restaurants that use the system to pour glasses of wine from their unicorn collections and then charge for a glass, what the bottle would be at retail, and truth be told, I have refrained from such expenditures, but I appreciate the concept.  It is the perfect tool for a wine shop that does wine tastings for customers on an individual basis, rather than at proscribed timed events.  I always thought it was overkill for the home, because if you open a wine and it is over the hill, you still have backups for a dinner. 

For the uninitiated, you are probably wondering what a Coravin system is.  The system allows you to enjoy a glass of wine without opening the bottle, a multiple of times (up to thirty times per their technology and gas capsule).  One can have white and then a red without ruining the cork, in fact the cork reseals after the pin is inserted to keep the wine fresh.  The system inserts a hollow pin through the cork allowing you to pour wine, and then when you remove the hollow pin, the cork can reseal the pinhole almost effortlessly.  I have read where bottles of wine have been tested over a year later, from the initial try with no noticeable change to the wine.  So even though I guess I lost, I also won, I wonder if I used the same argument for DRC or Le Pin.