Coravin review: The wine accessory I should have bought years ago!

Since moving to France, I’ve become a regular wine drinker and enjoy a glass of wine with my dinner a couple of nights a week. But Tom doesn’t drink, so it’s not always convenient to open a bottle of wine. Sound familiar? Well, I have a solution. It’s called a Coravin and is a wine accessory that I should have bought years ago. Let me tell you why it’s a must if you’re a wine enthusiast — even if you’re not the only wine drinker in your household. I know you’re going to love the Coravin as much as I do!

Coravin review

If you’re like me and the only wine drinker in the household, maybe you can relate to these three common dilemmas:

1) You know you only want one glass of wine and decide to not even open a bottle because it’s expensive and you don’t want to waste the rest.

2) You open a bottle of wine and feel like you need to finish it in the next couple of nights so it doesn’t go to waste and then end up drinking more than you’d like.

3) You open a bottle, then forget that it’s open and end up pouring it down the drain a week later when it’s no longer good.

4) If your partner drinks, one of you often has to compromise and drink whatever is open.

All of the above scenarios aren’t ideal and have happened in my house. But not anymore!

Meet the Coravin, the Timeless Six+ specifically, your new favorite wine preservation system that allows you to drink one glass of wine at a time without pulling the cork. With the Coravin, you can flawlessly preserve your wine until you’re ready to drink it again… weeks, months, or even years down the road.

I first saw a Coravin years ago in a St. Emilion wine shop. They’d use the device to let customers sample their wines and I was intrigued. Over the years, I’ve seen them more and more frequently both out and about and in people’s homes. A local restaurant here in small-town France even uses a commercial-model Coravin to serve wine by the glass from their extensive wine menu. Luckily, Coravin has a wide range of devices that are easy to use for non-wine pros too.

And folks, hear me when I tell you, a Coravin wine preservation system is LIFE CHANGING!!! For my fellow only-wine-drinkers-in-the-household, it will make wine drinking so simple and less wasteful. I feel silly admitting to you that I only started using a Coravin a few months ago after the brand sent it to me to review when I could have started benefiting from one if I had it years ago.

I guess a Coravin looked complicated to use and I figured it probably wouldn’t work that well, so eh, not something I really needed, right? WRONG on all counts. It’s not complicated at all and works amazingly well.

Even if you’re not the only wine drinker in your household, it’s still great and has a variety of uses in addition to the reasons I mentioned above, such as:

• an at-home wine tasting where you want to sample several wines
• if you’re cooking a special meal and want to pair a different wine with each course
• if you have special occasion bottles that you don’t want to open but do want to sample from time to time
• if your dining companion wants a glass of red and you want white but don’t want to open a bottle of each

How does a Coravin work?

Before I get too carried away, let me tell you how a Coravin works. It’s all about the needle! You don’t uncork the wine. This isn’t a wine stopper that just preserves the wine an extra couple of days. It leaves the wine untouched, as oxygen never touches the wine. You can have another glass a year down the road and it’ll taste exactly the same.

As their website explains, the Coravin Wine Preservation System’s non-coring needle “gently passes through corks without displacing cork material. Once the needle is removed, the cork simply expands back to its normal shape. As wine is extracted through the needle, it is replaced with pure argon gas, ensuring oxygen never touches the remaining wine, keeping it as fresh as the day it was bottled.”

How cool is that?!

The cork is never pulled so the wine isn’t exposed to air and thus doesn’t oxidize. It’s as if the bottle was never opened since the cork reseals after each puncture. Keep in mind the needle is intentionally off-center so it doesn’t pierce the same spot each time.

All you do is remove the wine bottle’s foil top to expose the cork, then place the device’s SmartClamps™ over the neck of the bottle so it’s in the proper position. Then push down firmly on the handle in one motion so the needle pierces the cork. Slide on the aerator attachment if your wine would benefit from being aerated.

Then tilt the bottle into a pouring position over your glass and press the trigger to pour the wine. When you’ve poured enough, just stand the bottle upright. When you’re all done with the bottle, pull up on the handle. That’s it!

Each gas capsule will let you do about 15 five-ounce (150ml) glasses of wine before you have to replace it. A five-ounce pour takes about 25 seconds.

Tip: If you tend to store your wine on its side, when you’re done pouring and remove the Coravin, don’t immediately put the bottle in a horizontal position. Give it 10-15 minutes to let the cork reseal before putting it back.

The Coravin Timeless Six+ is the one I have and what’s pictured in my photos. It is truly a standout product for wine drinkers out there and I don’t say that lightly. They even have a separate system for sparkling wines!

Here’s what comes in the box:

• The Coravin Timeless Six+ preservation system
• 6 screw caps
• 3 Coravin Pure™ Argon Capsules
• 1 aerator
• 1 carrying case

Having a Coravin in France has been amazingly useful because 95% of wines here have corks (screw caps are way less common although Coravin has you covered there too).

The Timeless Six+ looks fancy and comes in a variety of elegant color options. They’re all pretty foolproof and easy to use. You don’t need any special strength or wine knowledge to use a Coravin.

How much does a Coravin cost?

Coravin products range in price and the Timeless Six+ is a higher end model that retails for $329. The Timeless 3+ comes in at $229 and even made Oprah’s Favorite Things List last year. They are SO worth the price tag, though, if you identify with any of the scenarios I mentioned in this post.

Imagine how much wine you’ve wasted over the years! I don’t even want to think about how much has gone down the drain. But that’s a thing of the past. Coravin came to the rescue and it’s here to stay.

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Are you a wine drinker? Have you considered a Coravin?

Disclosure: Thank you to Coravin for gifting me the Timeless Six+. This Coravin review post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own.