While it’s unlikely Plato had wine preservation systems in mind when he said, “necessity is the mother of invention,” it was the temporary loss of his drinking partner to pregnancy that led Greg Lambrecht to develop Coravin.
“I found myself either not opening a bottle of wine when I wanted to only have one glass, or opening a bottle and eventually throwing away oxidised wine,” he says.
“Initially, it was this specific problem that drove me to invent a system for wine, but I soon realised that what I was really searching for was a means to drink any wine, in any amount, from any bottle, whenever I wanted, without having to think about when I would return to that bottle again.”
As a physicist and engineer who had spent many years developing medical technologies (including the needle used to administer epidurals, which is what the Coravin Timeless system needle is based on), Greg was uniquely placed to figure out a way to “teleport wine from the bottle.”
Still, it didn’t happen overnight. With R&D restricted to the hours outside his day job as CEO of a medical implant company, it would take 12 years, several prototypes, and lots of blind tastings before Coravin was officially launched in 2011. And, although it was swiftly adopted by both connoisseurs and restaurants who wanted to be able to offer premium wines by the glass (today, a glass of wine is poured somewhere around the world using Coravin every single second) the fact that it didn’t work on sparkling wines “genuinely pained” Greg.
But in 2021, after a further eight years and 18 iterations, the Coravin Sparkling system hit the market. Unlike the Timeless system, which uses a thin, hollow needle to remove wine through the cork, the carbon dioxide in sparkling wine means it’s safe to open the bottle and pour. The Coravin Sparkling uses a specialised stopper to properly reseal it afterwards, and a CO2 charger to top up any carbon dioxide that escaped while the bottle was open.
While the company officially says the system will preserve sparkling wine for four weeks, it’s much longer in reality. “I’ve been testing out sparkling wines that are still in pristine condition a year after the first pour,” says Greg. “The amount of remaining wine doesn't impact the efficacy of the Sparkling system. As we say, the last glass should be as good as the first.”
“Coravin has completely changed the way I drink wine,” he adds. “Now, I can come home and just have a single glass of Champagne, and it means I can have around six sparkling wines open at any given time to choose from.”
Learn more about the Coravin Sparkling system on the Coravin website.
Join Halliday Wine Club to drink the very best of Australian wine
Are you an explorer, enthusiast or collector? No matter the Halliday Wine Club plan you choose, each month we'll deliver two bottles of 95+ point wines direct to your door. From $89 per month. You can skip, pause or cancel anytime. Join now.
