Does the Argon Blown Into Your Bottle by a Coravin Affect the Taste?

The Coravin has become the modern wine world’s favorite gadget, a tool that lets you sample a bottle without pulling the cork, but it also sparks a recurring question: does the gas it injects—often mistakenly called nitrous—affect the taste of the wine? The short answer is no, and the long answer is a bit more nuanced.

Coravin doesn’t use nitrous oxide; it uses argon, an inert noble gas whose entire personality is doing absolutely nothing. Argon doesn’t bind to aroma compounds, doesn’t oxidize wine, and doesn’t flavor it in any way; it simply displaces oxygen so the wine can pour without spoiling. Still, while the gas itself is neutral, the process can subtly affect how a wine presents over time. Pressure changes, repeated extractions, and cork variability can all influence a wine’s expression, especially in older or more delicate bottles like Burgundy, aged Barolo, or mature Napa Cabernet. The difference isn’t about flavor alteration—argon is incapable of that—but about how certain wines respond to being accessed multiple times over days or weeks. Some tasters report a softer or slightly muted texture, not because argon changes taste, but because the bottle’s internal equilibrium shifts as wine is removed and replaced by gas. And cork integrity matters: older or compromised corks allow oxygen ingress no matter how perfect the device is. 

So while a "Coravined" wine is rarely identical to a freshly opened bottle, the gas itself isn’t the culprit; what you’re noticing is the natural evolution of the wine, tiny pressure fluctuations, or the limits of the cork. For most modern, well-made wines, the differences are negligible and the Coravin is a miracle of convenience. Robert Parker declared as much. But for high-aromatic or fully mature wines, the best rule still applies: if the bottle is special, just open it. Marone.