Wine enthusiasts, bar managers, restaurant owners, wine merchants, and other venue owners know just how important serving quality wine is to their customers.
Anyone who serves wine at their venue knows the often uphill struggle of maintaining the quality of wine once it’s been opened or uncorked, so your customers can enjoy the benefits of the premium quality they’ve paid for.
Thankfully new technology is helping wine managers of all kinds to keep wine fresher for longer, ensuring better profit margins, but where do you start looking?
In this article, we are going to put two giants of wine preservation head to head and compare Enomatic vs Coravin.
Enomatic vs Coravin? Although both Enomatic and Coravin wine preservation technology successfully removes air which can spoil wine and encourage higher ticket purchases, Enomatic wine dispensers can reduce overheads, allow contactless serving, build loyalty driving purchases, and its software functionality tracks sales.
Ok so now we’ve seen the definitive answer, let’s get straight down to the details and so we can better understand whether Enomatic or Coravin is the best solution for your venue, bar, or restaurant, let’s start by looking at what happens to wine once it’s opened.
So we can better understand whether the technology from Enomatic or Coravin works better for your needs, let’s first take a quick look at what happens to wine once it’s opened.
What happens to wine once it’s opened?
Those in the hospitality industry understand how crucial it is that fresh wine keeps its texture and are always looking for new innovative ways of keeping wine at the optimum freshness.
- Once the wine is opened there is an instant drop in the quality and freshness which can cause the wine to not only taste bitter but also be undrinkable, hugely eating into your venue’s profits.
- Most wines last open for only about 1–3 days, once opened before they start to go bad.
- In a nutshell, opened wine can taste like vinegar to many people once it’s started to deteriorate
- This taste is due to alcohol in the wine oxidizing, it can also cause a taste like bruised fruit or a nutty quality to the wine.
“Once the wine is opened there is an instant drop in the quality and freshness which can cause the wine to not only taste bitter, but also be undrinkable, hugely eating into your venue’s profits.”
What should you do?
In order to keep your wine tasting perfect and at its best quality, there are a few ways to slow down chemical reactions in the wine.
- Store wine at lower temperatures
- Use a wine vacuum or pump
One of the ways to deal with the problem is using a standard wine pump.
A vacuum pump will remove the air from the bottle and prevent a good seal to prevent further air from entering the bottle, resulting in slower oxidation.
However, as anyone in the hospitality industry such as a bar, restaurant, or other venue owner knows only too well that time is money, so do you really want your bar staff to be spending precious time vacuuming out wine bottles?
So let’s look below at some of the benefits of using the ultimate in wine preservation technology and check out the offerings of both Enomatic and Coravin.
“…time is money, so do you really want your bar staff to be spending precious time vacuuming out wine bottles?”
Enomatic and Coravin: The Background
Coravin
Coravin technology in a nutshell is a wine system that allows the wine to flow without removing the cork.
The Coravin System is a combination of components that allows a volume of wine typically 90 mL. As the wine is removed the liquid is replaced by argon gas (proprietary gas capsules).
The company began back in 2011 and operates in 60 countries worldwide.
Enomatic
The Enomatic wine preservation system is an automated wine dispenser imported from Tuscany, Italy.
Enomatic is the worldwide leader in the field of wine technology and hospitality business solutions. The company was founded in 2002 by two Tuscan entrepreneurs. In just a few years Enomatic has expanded worldwide and is now present in over 73 countries.
An Enomatic wine dispenser can serve up to three different programmable pour sizes (taste, half-glass, full glass) of wine simply at the touch of a button.
Many upscale restaurants, bars, clubs and retailers across the US have installed Enomatic systems to allow patrons to order high-end wine by the glass, as an alternative to a bottle.
Similar to Coravin, the system surrounds the wine with Argon gas, preventing oxidation.
As a result, each open bottle of wine is protected in terms of its organoleptic integrity, which is the essence of its taste, aroma, body, and color.
So now we’ve looked at what Enomatic and Coravin are, you might be wondering how they will add value to your business, and if so, which one is best?
“Many upscale restaurants, bars, clubs and retailers across the US have installed Enomatic systems to allow patrons to order high-end wine by the glass, as an alternative to a bottle.”
Read on to find out!
Increase sales per customer
As many customers in a bar, restaurant, or even in a high-end hotel or country club, won’t always be seasoned wine buffs, using wine technology that allows the wine to be sampled without the negative issues involved in simply uncorking it.
It can be a great way of selling the pricier high end and sophisticated wines your bar staff wouldn’t usually make available to customers as a sample.
So this makes it easier to sell higher-priced wines and helps to increase the average ticket price of each customer.
Both Enomatic and Coravin might draw an even score on this element and help to encourage your customers to buy wine at the more luxurious end of the market.
So, is it Enomatic or Coravin which will help your venue drive sales? Read on to discover more.
Drive additional sales
So, although both wine preservation companies maybe head to head in encouraging more expensive wine to be consumed by your clientele, Enomatic wins hands down when it comes to driving additional sales
As Enomatic offers contactless wine dispensers, using their system also means that completely contactless wine can be served such as in hotel lobbies, country clubs, or even in a bar with bartenders!
If your bar staff are knee-deep at the bar with customers, then offering a contactless solution will almost certainly lead to extra sales if customers can simply dispense their own wine.
Ok so now let’s discover how Enomatic and Coravin score on customer loyalty.
So, by choosing Enomatic, you would be looking at driving new customers through the door, which in turn encourages new business.
So, what have these two wine preservation systems got extra in the bag to encourage repeat customers? Let’s find out.
“Enomatic wins hands down when it comes to driving additional sales.”
Customer loyalty
Enomatic
Enomatic further encourages customer loyalty by offering pre-paid card, post-paid card a point-based system whereby each customer’s purchase is converted into points stored in a card that can then be used in their contactless wine server.
Coravin
At the time of writing Coravin isn’t offering any kind of customer incentive program.
Contactless wine offering
As we’ve seen previously, Enomatic offers a unique system that requires no contact by customers and allows the wine to be served in almost any hospitality venue.
Coravin
As Coravin operates using a thin wall needle to remove the wine from a bottle without removing the cork, it will need to be operated by a member of the bar or waiting staff.
Waste and overheads
Enomatic
Enomatic’s ingenious design was created with many savings in mind for hospitality venues and wine merchants. Enomatic:
- Eliminates waste
- Reduces overheads
- Maximizes profits.
Coravin
Although Coravins wine system will help to eliminate wine waste, and also help to increase profits, it won’t give the added benefit of reducing overheads such as the need for less bar staff and other important business costs.
Software
Enomatic
Enomatic wine preservation systems allow you to track not only all the wines carried but also the use of the system by customers.
This can give your business really useful data and allows the venue to even place limits on the amount of wine a customer can consume for any given period of time.
With card-operated systems, Enomatic becomes your own virtual salesperson and bartender in one hit!
Coravin
Coravin doesn’t allow any trackable software to its clients. It does offer ‘Coravin Club’ which gives discounts and new product pre-sales.
And finally…
There you have it! Everything you needed to know about two wine preservation experts, to help you more easily choose which is right for your bar, hotel, wedding venue, or restaurant.
Don’t forget to check out our website to see how Enomatic can help build your empire in hospitality and other wine-related business by checking out all our benefits.
