Standing behind the bar at The Cypress Room, Wine Director Eric Larkee pours the group a glass of Müller-Catoir Riesling. A hard-to-find wine and personal favorite of Michael Schwartz’s, the restaurant’s owner and executive chef.
“We poured the first glass of wine from this bottle two months ago,” Larkee notes.
Everyone takes a sip. The Riesling is delicious and completely fresh.
How can he achieve this? No, it’s not some special restaurant insider secret. It’s because of the wine gadget he’s using: the Coravin.
The Coravin is the new tool on the wine market that allows you to pour as little or as much wine as you’d like from a bottle — without ever actually removing the cork. By using a thin needle to pierce through the cork, the device expels wine while simultaneously replacing it in the bottle with argon gas. Once the needle is removed from the cork it instantly seals itself back up so the remaining wine is never exposed to oxygen.
Larkee first introduced the Coravin at The Cypress Room when he was choosing wine to pair with the restaurant’s ever-popular tasting menus. He wanted to be able to pour any wine of his choosing without the rest of the bottle going to waste.
“Every day things change a bit,” Larkee says about the tasting menus. “Sometimes we sell four tasting menus, but only two have pairings. If there is a wine that goes great with that certain dish now we don’t have to worry about cost loss.”
He is also able to add rare, more expensive wines by the glass to the menu such as a 2009 Château de Fieuzal Bordeaux ($35) and a 2011 Dauvissat Petit Chablis ($28). This allows diners to enjoy glasses of wine that are more upscale, which they may not be willing or able to afford in a full bottle.
The Cypress Room was the first restaurant in Miami to use the device and it has gone over so well that they have introduced it into the wine program at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, its sister restaurant, just a few weeks back.
Want to see the Coravin in action for yourself? Head over The Cypress Room or Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink and order a special glass of wine and enjoy.
