What’s happening, team? Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to speak with Greg Lambrecht, the inventor, founder, and chairman of the board of Coravin, Inc.
Before we get to the conversation I had with Greg, let’s discuss what the Coravin does. Coravin is a by-the-glass system that you can use at home or in any restaurant or wine bar. The Coravin was created to be able to pour a glass from any bottle and have the freedom to revisit the same bottle whenever you choose. What does that mean? Greg has created the technology to pour a glass of wine and still keep the bottle sealed and free from air and oxidation by using a layer of gas to keep it fresh for days or years on end.
Greg is an inventor in every sense of the word. He has dual engineering degrees from MIT and is the founder and executive director of Intrinsic Therapeutic, Inc., a venture-backed medical device company that is dedicated to the needs of patients with spinal disorders. It’s a lot so let me break my conversation down with you.
The Coravin is a result of Greg wanting to taste different wines or just having a glass of wine after work and not wasting a whole bottle to oxidation. It’s really quite brilliant by looking at this problem within the same thought process of his day to day in the medical field. He looked at the problem and said, “How do I teleport the wine out of the bottle and into my glass?”
He created the Coravin Timeless — a twist on what he does every day. He developed a product that would insert a needle through the cork allowing you to pour the wine through the needle. How does this happen? There is a cartridge of Argon gas that is being released into the bottle — in essence forcing the wine out to protect it from any oxygen that comes through the cork when the needle is removed (very little, if any). This is preserving the wine perfectly in the bottle for the next time you want to try that bottle.
I will be the first one to say that I was skeptical of this product when it first came out. Generally, when I open a bottle, there’s nothing left to save. My thought process has changed, because I collect wine now. Sometimes I want to try different wines with different foods at the house to see which pairing is better. Some wines need more time cellaring before they’re ready, but how do you know when? Maybe my wife wants Old World Grenache while I would like some older California Syrah. Now we both can have what we want knowing that the rest of the bottle is perfectly preserved until we want to go back and drink it again.
This is just one of the three versions of Coravin that are game changers. There is the Timeless which we just talked about. There is the Pivot which is great for restaurants or the bottle that you want to preserve for a few days because with this system it will help to keep your wine delicious for up to a month. Then there comes a new offering, the Coravin Sparkling! This system allows you to open a bottle of sparkling wine and instead of a needle going through the cork, they have developed a stopper and gas system that will keep your sparkling wine preserved for up to a month! This system uses CO2 gas, the same gas used in sparkling wine production, instead of Argon gas. Now I don’t have to commit to opening a whole bottle when Lindsey and I just want a glass of Champagne on the patio on a beautiful Houston evening.
I’m very impressed with this technology and very happy to see it being used not just in the home but in restaurants as well. It gives restaurants the ability to pour glasses of rare wines that they normally wouldn’t be able to, because the prices are higher than a normal by the glass choice.
This is the kind of technology we should get behind! I’m going to go pour a glass of something delicious and put that bottle back in the cellar and keep tasting it! Go ahead and try something fun and maybe something you were saving for that special occasion, today seems special! We should all raise a glass to Greg!
