‘Corkscrew’ wine glasses remove need to decant

A Colorado-based start-up has designed an innovative wine glass that incorporates a hand blown ‘corkscrew’ moulded at its base to trap sediment, which it says removes the need to decant the bottle.

Spirale wine glasses are designed to trap sediment in a spiral moulded into its base

Spirale is a hand-blown wine glass with an unique, patented design embedded in the stem that captures sediment found in red wine as it settles, eliminating the need for to decant a wine.

The wine glass was designed by Vacanti Wine Glasses, founded in 2012 by husband and wife Patrick and Margarita Vacanti and has been in development for the past five years taking advice from sommeliers, wineries, restaurant owners and target consumers from around the world.

Now, Spirale is close to reaching the market after a Kickstarter campaign launched to fund it received $81,398, almost double its $48,000 goal with 10 days left to pledge. 

“My husband and I were enjoying a delicious bottle of red wine until our last few sips were tainted by a bitter flow of sediment,” said Margarita Vacanti, founder of Vacanti Wine Glasses, on the inspiration for the glass. “Inspired by the shape of a corkscrew and how it grips a cork, we embarked on a journey to revolutionize the wine drinking experience.”

Wine sediment is often removed by a winemaker through a process of filtering, clarification and stabilisation of a wine, however such deposits are perfectly harmless and can be an indicator of age in wine. Many winemakers of fine wines believe that filtering and fining their wines to remove the risk of it throwing a sediment to be detrimental to the quality of the wine.

Spirale offers a way to trap sediment particles in a simple way, poured straight from the bottle, without the use of a decanter. Its inventors say that the moulded spiral at the best of the glass will lock in sediment, trapping it at the base of the glass, even when users tilt their glass to sip.

The Spirale glasses, which are available in a sets of two, four, eight and twelve, are available to backers at a discounted price starting at only $23 per stem, with the glasses expected to reach the market this November.