It was my birthday a few months ago and my extended family bought me a Coravin. For the uninitiated this is a device where you can extract a small amount of wine from a bottle without pulling the cork and without impacting the continued aging of the bottle. A thin but very robust needle is inserted through the cork, and inert argon gas is inserted whilst wine is extracted. This means that oxygen never comes in contact with the wine, and thus in theory it continues to age as if it had never been touched. This means that you can taste individual wines by the glass rather than committing to opening an entire bottle. In a house where I'm for the most part the only red drinker this could be supremely useful. Possibly this is why the family bought it for me, so that I drink a glass rather than a bottle. I'm touched.
It took me several months to pluck up the courage to use it. Nearly six in fact. The sacrificial bottle was a 2013 Cavallotto. The cartridges of argon gas are not cheap - think ink cartridges for printers in terms of the equation here - so you need to think reasonably carefully about what you use it on and not waste it on something cheap. It's also not entirely foolproof, there are a reasonable number of stories about wine aging prematurely despite the argon, so it's probably not one to use on that special bottle of Richebourg either. Cavallotto's Bricco Bochis is neither of these things and as I have a couple it seemed like a good candidate. Of course it was totally delicious, this is a producer with whom you cannot really go wrong - incredibly fragrant and tasty. The real test will be the second glass that I extract, will the wine be as if I'd just pulled the cork, or will it show some signs of having been opened? Once you've taken a glass and extracted the needle the cork should then reseal itself. Anyway, it's back in the cellar and so far there does not seem to be any seepage, so let's see how it goes. Could be a game changer.
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