Question for winos

Half Fast

Half Fast

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Half Fast
Has anyone tried a Coravin opener / preserver?

https://www.amazon.com/Coravin-Mode...7018ZDNNFFT&psc=1&refRID=KPQB5V4E87018ZDNNFFT


My doctor has limited me to a maximum of two glasses of wine a week (which is plenty), so it would be nice if I could extract a glass and have the rest of the bottle remain good for a while. This looks like it might be a good option if it really works.

As it is, I have several nice bottles that I'm afraid to open because I'd end up pouring most of it down the drain. My wife doesn't like wine, so apart from a dinner party it's up to me to finish off anything I open.
 
Some thoughts:

I can buy a lot of wine for $150.
Can the two glasses be on the same sitting? That's only 'wasting' a half a bottle.
Can you buy a bigger wine glass?
Can you do 1 bottle every other weekend and be within Dr's orders?

And finally, I'm curious about the thing too. How do you avoid cross contamination of reds to whites? What's the Argon do? Is there Argon in the original bottling process?
 
Coravin? No. But we do have one of those Rabbit wine sets with the electric corkscrew and vacuum stoppers. Works like a champ! Now granted, I'm only drinking the Kirkland cabernet, and I'm sure folks will be along shortly to point out what utter swill it is to begin with, but it stays consistent until I finish the bottle. And that's at last a couple of hours... umm, I mean days. A few days. Yeah.
 
Too many vineyards are switching to screw caps. For open corks try the rubber corks with a vacuum pump and refrigerate. It works pretty well. Unless you're drinking Opus One. In that case find a different doctor!
 
To answer Ravioli's questions:

I can buy a lot of wine for $150.
Ripple, yes. Wine, no.
​
Can the two glasses be on the same sitting? That's only 'wasting' a half a bottle.
No. Trying to minimize what the liver has to process. I have autoimmune liver disease.
​
Can you buy a bigger wine glass?
See above.
​
Can you do 1 bottle every other weekend and be within Dr's orders?
See above.​

How do you avoid cross contamination of reds to whites?
Clean out the needle with a squirt of Argon. There's very little wine in the device at any time.
​
What's the Argon do?
Argon is an inert gas. Could also be nitrogen, I assume. The point is to avoid having a large amount of air which allows the wine to oxidize.
​
Is there Argon in the original bottling process?
No, but if the wine is filled properly there's very little air in the bottle.​
 
Stewartb said:
Too many vineyards are switching to screw caps. For open corks try the rubber corks with a vacuum pump and refrigerate. It works pretty well. Unless you're drinking Opus One. In that case find a different doctor!
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They have a screw-on cap with a piece of pliable material (I think it's rubber or silicone) to be used on screw-top bottles.
 
Wine snobs annoy me. All these "notes" they claim to detect...horse hockey.

Drink the wine you like. One of my favorite table wines comes from a box, Franzia Chillable Red.

Flame on!

To the OP - I realize that this doesn't help find an answer to your question. Sorry 'bout that.
 
I was hoping to get some good, serious comments too.
I don't drink much wine. And my Scotch doesn't last long enough to need preserving. But my wife likes a glass of "good" wine a couple of times a week and she winds up pouring out (or suffering through) a half bottle of not-cheap wine. It might take a year to pay for itself, but if it helps her enjoy the left-over wine more it would be worth it.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Wine snobs annoy me. All these "notes" they claim to detect...horse hockey.

Drink the wine you like.
Click to expand...

We have a friend who’s a sommelier. She found ways to show my awful palette how to taste the differences in wine by pairing the wine with crazy ass appetizers and snacks custom chosen for a particular wine. The effect is stunning — stuff like popping a single raisin in your mouth and eating it then tasting five wines immediately afterward, and one of them making you think you just ate a big juicy pear. The others just the usual wine flavor and tannins aftertaste.

But she also says exactly what you do. Once you find a wine you like, drink that one!

Without the food pairing parlor tricks my palette always picks the cheap stuff at her wine parties. Almost without fail. She has everyone do blind tasting and rate four or five bottles.

And given the choice I won’t bother with wine at all. Scotch or mixed drinks. Which... I really don’t/can’t partake of anymore on any of my drugs. So it’s essentially a thing of the past for me. I think I’ve had three beers since the medical silliness started.

But there’s definitely wildly different flavors hiding in various wines, but I don’t detect them very well without the food games.

The other one that was fascinating the last time we did it was she found both a red and a white that amplified the taste of prociutto (sp?) massively. That was very odd. And enjoyable.

She usually invited her Chef friend over for those parties and he would whip up some delightful treats or even take over dinner prep for her. Was fun.
 
I’m way over my head obviously, not a wine expert, but...can’t you buy mini bottle of wine of the type you like? Or did I just yet again expose my ignorance?
 
LongRoadBob said:
I’m way over my head obviously, not a wine expert, but...can’t you buy mini bottle of wine of the type you like? Or did I just yet again expose my ignorance?
Click to expand...

Most of the time that’s only available for cheap wines that I thumb my nose up at. However, I do know that Duckhorn will sell half bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon but I don’t know where they’re sold. It is a good wine that I like, and that might be an option.
 
Man, to me, drinking a single glass of wine twice a week is beyond pointless. You are only drinking it for the taste. Maybe look at low or non-alcoholic wines?
 
Sac Arrow said:
Man, to me, drinking a single glass of wine twice a week is beyond pointless. You are only drinking it for the taste. Maybe look at low or non-alcoholic wines?
Click to expand...
My wife drinks one or two glasses, once or twice a week for the taste. She drinks vodka on ice with lemon the rest of the time.
I drink Scotch for the taste. Many more than one or two and more than two nights a week. Other than that, I drink my share of vodka martinis.
 
Another vote for the vacuum stopper thingie. That’s what my husband uses and it seems to work fine.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Most of the time that’s only available for cheap wines that I thumb my nose up at. However, I do know that Duckhorn will sell half bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon but I don’t know where they’re sold. It is a good wine that I like, and that might be an option.
Click to expand...

If you can get half bottles of Duckhorn you won’t be disappointed. Good stuff...

Not sure where you are located but if you have a wine store close, go in and talk to them. They could probably order you what you need in smaller bottles.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Man, to me, drinking a single glass of wine twice a week is beyond pointless. You are only drinking it for the taste. Maybe look at low or non-alcoholic wines?
Click to expand...


Yes, I'm drinking it for the taste. And the non-alcoholic wines mostly taste terrible. The only one I've tried that was decent was the chardonnay by Ariel. It's pretty good but it's hard to find.
 
I’m impressed. I’m doing well to finish off a 1.5l bottle of Cab in a week. Maybe if it were sangria or something...
 
The rubber stopper vacuum thingy for us but it doesnt make it last much longer imho.

The wife drinks wine and I dont. If a bottle is less than $15 and she gets a couple of glasses it's fine so lets call that $9 for wine that was drank and $6 poured out.

Now a few expensive bottles such as the Barolos and Brunellos that have been aging in the wine cooler will be shared vs wasting half the bottle. The real problem is when that's all there is in the cooler then its tempting to open one :)

So the other answer is half bottles. And there is some great wine by the half bottle! When my wife and her friends visited Sonoma they all found wines they really liked and several of their favorites had half bottles. So we're on the yearly shipping list. We rarely spend more than $15 on a bottle but there is one Pinot noir in particular that is off the charts in our opinion (even I think it's the best wine we've ever had in the house). It's their cheapest wine at $51. Always a xmas gift. Half bottles are $26 so just a dollar more and same shipping. So thats $13/glass for a fantastic wine vs $8 or more for a simple restaurant wine or spending $15 on a bottle and dumping out half. These half bottles have corks, not screw top.
 
Sinistar said:
These half bottles have corks, not screw top.
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Even wine snobs (like my wife) are coming to realize that screw tops are just as good, or better than corks. Many experts even say they are better for the wine because they allow more consistent air "ingress" than corks.
 
Half bottles might be a good idea in the future, at least for some wines, but I’d like an option for the full bottle wines I already own. I’ve tried the rubber stopper / vacuum and it doesn’t seal well enough or remove enough air to help much. Simply popping a bottle into the refrigerator extends it about a week to ten days, but I’d like longer.

One nice thing about the Coravin, if it actually works, is that I could have a glass of, say, Pinot noir on one day and a glass of Chardonnay a few days later, going back and forth or drinking a different wine whenever I like.
 
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