Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
This afternoon, I was at the Brooklyn Winery in Red Hook and saw the staff using an incredibly fancy gas injection system to pour their wine.
Needless to say, I was intrigued. I've seen so many different systems to take the corks out of bottles, but never anything that is designed to leave the cork in while pouring wine.
How it works
The machine actually punctures the cork; and, much like a bicycle pump, the needle has a hole in the end of it which extracts the wine. If any of you remember your physics, you'll know that if you pump in fluid or air to a pressurized environment, you'll increase the pressure. Well, this device forces argon gas into the bottle, and in doing so, the increased pressure inside the bottle displaces wine, while preventing oxygen exposure.
Why would you do this?
Well, wine can keep for many years in the right storage conditions, e.g. temperature and amount of light. But the main killer of wine is oxygen. As soon as you open a bottle of wine, you let in oxygen that will ruin the taste in a matter of days. So, that is to say, when you open a bottle, the wine begins its death sentence, in terms of shelf life.
What this argon system does, is it minimizes the amount of oxygen that enters the bottle; so, the shelf life is much longer. This means that previously untouchable, "expensive" bottles of wine are much more accessible for tasting. $80 bottle of wine could be sipped for much longer before the taste changed, so wineries and restaurants lose less money in wasted wine.
Loving this? Get your own Coravin 1000 Wine Access System (Amazon).
Thanks John, But I think you meant to say “if you add liquid or gas to a container, you will increase the pressure”.
This thing works by injecting Argon. Since the pressure on the “out” port is 1 ATM, if you add Ar, you will displace wine, without letting O2 in.
The question now is, where do we get Ar (or N) cylinders for a reasonable price…
(I just made you remember your High School chemistry without you realizing it. And YOU thought you would NEVER use it…)
Great catch! I’ve made the change. I almost wonder if wine bottles would be better off if they were more like toothpaste containers or juice pouches. That way you could just press out the excess oxygen before you sealed it back up.