Coravin launches guide to wines by the glass
Huon Hooke in Free for all Become a member to view this article
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Coravin is all about serving wine by-the-glass. Coravin
Coravin, the wine preserving system that has taken the world by storm since its invention in 2011, has launched a guide to restaurants that excel at serving wines by the glass (BTG).
Coravin commissioned independent research this year which showed 50.39% of the more than 1,000 respondents in the UK and Australia were ordering more wines by the glass than two years ago.In a canny move by the gadget’s inventor Greg Lambrecht, restaurants, bars and other wine venues around the world are identified on the website.
It’s a logical move as Coravin is all about serving wine by-the-glass. With the global trend towards increasing health-consciousness, and the desire to limit alcohol consumption, it makes sense. Also, wine drinkers today are more than ever wanting to experiment, to mix it up, maybe even try a different wine with each course of the meal.
The promotional gambit is “Too often, people feel they need an occasion to open a special bottle when out, or they miss out on exploring because a full bottle feels like a commitment”.
Coravin commissioned independent research this year which showed 50.39% of the more than 1,000 respondents in the UK and Australia were ordering more wines by the glass than two years ago. In Australia, the figure was 54%. This was across all age-groups from 25 years upwards. The biggest motivators were the desire to try high-end wines without committing to a full bottle, and simply exploring different wines.
As one who often needs to resort to a BTG wine, and is often disappointed by the small and limited selection available, I can see great benefit for Coravin in promoting establishments that do a lot of BTG—especially those that use the Coravin to do it.
Open the online guide and you find there are individual tabs for Sydney, Melbourne, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Sydney tab gives you brief descriptions of 22 recommended venues.
Quay gets a 3-wineglass rating for over 60 wines by the glass.
Nomad in Surry Hills gets a 2-glass rating for more than 40 wines BTG.
Attenzione! of Redfern gets a one-glass rating for more than 20 wines BTG.
There’s a click-through to each establishment’s by-the-glass list.
There are 33 venues in Melbourne in the guide, 99 venues in London, seven each in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Presumably, the Coravin Guide will offer tips for more cities in the future and be updated regularly. Being online allows for an infinite number.
Open the online guide and you find there are individual tabs for Sydney, Melbourne, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Los Angeles.The website design is pleasing to the eye and easy to use.
Do venues have to pay to be included?
No, it’s free for venues to be listed—providing they meet the criteria—and free for users like you and me. It’s not clear how detailed the inspections are, if any, but the criteria for inclusion are on the website, where venues can apply to be included.
They must have at least 20 wines by the glass, must have a sommelier or wine specialist on hand, and no—Coravin use is not mandatory.
A good point. We need to encourage the drinking of appropriately mature wine with a meal. I will attempt to pass that comment on to Mr Lambrechts.
I was immediately attracted to exploring a few of the wine lists at the high end 3-glass restaurants in Sydney. This is a great way to explore those wines where consuming a bottle between two of us is not going to be a perfect match for all courses. This should enhance matching wine opportunities where the food deserves an excellent wine accompaniment. However, I was somewhat disappointed to see that upon inspection, most of the offered wines are very young. I was expecting to see this approach used to offer wines with some age rather than recent wines that need time to show their best.