Boffins reveal how to pour a perfect glass of wine with no drips. First step, take a diamond...

A biophysicist has found a way to save precious wine drops from leaking down the side of the bottle after it’s poured into a glass. There are ways to prevent spillage with nifty devices inserted into the bottle neck. But Daniel Perlman, a senior research scientist and inventor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, America, …

[BebopWeBop]

There should

Be an engineering equivalent of the iGnoble

[JetSetJim]

Re: There should

The IgNobels don't have a fixed category list, so nominate them here. In 2013 there was this prize:

SAFETY ENGINEERING PRIZE: The late Gustano Pizzo [USA], for inventing an electro-mechanical system to trap airplane hijackers — the system drops a hijacker through trap doors, seals him into a package, then drops the encapsulated hijacker through the airplane's specially-installed bomb bay doors, whence he parachutes to earth, where police, having been alerted by radio, await his arrival.

In 2010:

ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.

2004:

ENGINEERING: Donald J. Smith and his father, the late Frank J. Smith, of Orlando Florida, USA, for patenting the combover (U.S. Patent #4,022,227)

And there's more on their winners page

[swschrad]

oh, for crap's sake, roll the bottle

why gouge the bottle and risk dropping a sparkly thing inside, amateurs and professionals alike have rolled the bottle a quarter-turn for multiple generations. no drips. these guys never caught on???

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should have talked with the engineers and those people that work with fluids. The grove to prevent flow back has been known for years and has been used on window sills to prevent water running back and down the walls for evah .

[Anonymous Coward]

But how could they patent it if they don't have a good invention story? Oh yeah, I forget like all the "X, but on the internet" and "X, but on cell phones" this is "X, but on wine bottles" where X = groove like on window sills.

[jgarbo]

My teapot in Japan in the 1970s had a grooved spout to stop the "English Tea syndrome". Never spilt a drop. For wine, do what any good waiter knows: at the end of the pour, twist the bottle to show the beautiful label to the customer (or the client) and absorb that last drop. No spillage.

[John Smith 19]

"My teapot in Japan in the 1970s had a grooved spout to stop the "English Tea syndrome".

Except, it seems, in England.

[GrumpenKraut]

> known for years

Make that "decades".

The PR departments of some US Universities seem to be quite good at press releases.

[Anonymous Coward]

It keeps alumni money coming in if former students think the university is still turning out great new ideas.

[Chris G]

More like centuries than decades, capillary breaks/gaps/grooves have been in use in building, roofing and carpentry since at least the middle ages if not before.

I have an idea for a roundy sort of thing that might make moving heavy things a lot easier,

I could put a rubber ring around it so that it absorbs the bumps a bit.

I was thinking of calling it 'a rotating heavy thing mover' anyone think it could catch on?

[xeroks]

...yet no-one has applied the concept to wine bottles before.

Most invention is applying old ideas to new areas. If it makes the world a slightly better place, I'm all for it being patented.

I'm not clear though why the lip can't just be included in the mould - is that too fine detail for glass?

[Andy The Hat]

Not a lip!

Can't be a lip as that has been around since the Grecians were Urning. This is a fully patentable 'non drip, diamond-cut groove' which has no relation to a lip or capillary groove of any type ... even those already molded into some plastic bottles which are not designed to purvey Oddbins' best plonk.

[hplasm]

Shurely...

...screwtops have this already? *hic*

/winesacrilege

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Shurely...

..screwtops have this already? *hic*

/winesacrilege

Some damn good wines come with screw tops[1]. Sure, the wine doesn't age quite as well but that's not really an issue in my house..

[1] Also, quite a lot of Aussie[2] wines :-)

[2] I jest - Dark Corner is a fine wine. Very quaffable. Hic, haec, hoc!

[PyLETS]

Re: Shurely...

Screwtops are much less useful after their first use than ones you pull corks out of which take new standard sized corks with standard tools readily available to the home brewer.

[Oengus]

I'll drink to that... After all it is Friday afternoon.

[JetSetJim]

Why Friday? It should be part of your daily diet according to latest research

[imanidiot]

how innovative...

Something known in fluid dynamics engineering since a century, applied to a wine bottle.

[A K Stiles]

Alternative approach

As occasionally practiced in our house - when you get a drip running down the outside of the bottle you apply your tongue to said drip and thus lose nothing, except perhaps a little class!

[Unep Eurobats]

Re: Alternative approach

You beat me to it, icon and all.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Alternative approach

you apply your tongue to said drip and thus lose nothing, except perhaps a little class!

Or just save the middleman (and hassle of washing the glass) by drinking from the bottle. Not to be recommended when drinking Vintage Port though.

[jake]

Let the drop fall where it may.

It satisfies the Wine Gawd/ess.

[Rich 11]

Re: Let the drop fall where it may.

It stains the tablecloth.

Not that you could tell in my house.

[jake]

Re: Let the drop fall where it may.

Better to hide the innocuous drop satiating the Gawd/ess than to force him/her to take a whole glass right in the middle of your new Axminster.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Let the drop fall where it may.

It stains the tablecloth.

s/tablecloth/shirt/g

Which is why there is currently one of my favourite white shirts soaking in the sink. Yes, yes, I know white wine is supposed to get out red wine stains but why would I have white wine in the house? It would have to take up room in the wine rack that nature clearly designed to be occupied by red wine..

[lglethal]

They fail to understand the history

In ancient times, the drinkers would delibrately spill some Drops on the floor to appease the gods. As time went by the bottle manufacturers decided to save us Plebs the effort and make the Drops come from the bottle. now we'll have to go back to appeasing the gods the old way!

Time to start stocking up on the carpet cleaner again!

[Gasp!]

Hic

"The painstaking three-year study"

Would have been finshisd in 3 weeks but we had to drikn all the wine you know!

[Steven Raith]

I use a special glass to prevent drips.

It's genius. The glass is about a foot tall, and is normally topped with either cork, or a screwcap.

Solves every problem.

Steven "tramp" R

[Unep Eurobats]

Comme il faut

I always thought the correct etiquette was to finish pouring with a snappy Gallic twist of the wrist and then lick the side of the bottle.

Perhaps that's why no one comes to my dinner parties?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Comme il faut

I always thought the correct etiquette was to finish pouring with a snappy Gallic twist of the wrist and then lick the side of the bottle.

Perhaps that's why no one comes to my dinner parties?

I'd come to your dinner party, but only if I could have my own bottle and not share. I wouldn't want to co-lick..

[Andy 73]

See, kids....

...that's why we teach science in school.

[Anonymous Coward/2.0]

No engineering required.

Just twist the bottle as you finish pouring a glass. No drips. No diamonds required.

[jake]

Re: No engineering required.

No research money to purchase wine, either.

[Will Godfrey]

High Tech

My dear old mum solved the problem with drippy milk jugs and teapots in highly scientific manner. She put a rubber band round them just below the spout. Came up with that idea entirely by herself too.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: High Tech

She put a rubber band round them just below the spout

I'll tell my favourite tortie cat to up the rate she catches the rubber bands then...

(Nowadays, it seems to be the only thing she is interested in hunting. Either that, or all the posties in the area are diverting to my house to drop the rubber bands inside the garden gate..)

[Andy The Hat]

Re: High Tech

Does that work with over-dunked biscuits too? I just had to sit by my excessively stained tea mug for several seconds before I considered my Jaffa Cake to be drip-free.

[Ken Moorhouse]

What about...

...a sharp-edged orifice?

[080]

French Idea

The French have a much better anti drip device fitted to a 5l cubi (wine box), a little plastic tap, fills a glass with no drips and very little effort.

[jake]

Re: French Idea

I think you'll find that the bag-in-a-box, and the later tap, were actually invented in Australia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your taxes at work

I'd like to know how many taxpayer dollars went to funding this.

[long-in-tooth]

Stunning piece of research/twaddle

Wish I'd thought of that. Could have got a BIG grant for the research.

Else..........

Run a finger under the edge of a window sill and feel the drip groove.

Here's a link, Mr Scientist-

http://www.decksgo.com/deck-fascia.html

[Toni the terrible]

Wine?

I am a cider drinker, I drinks it all of the day ooo ah oo ah ooah a (The Wurzels)

That said I am happy that anyone rediscovers a way of reducing alcohol loss, even with wine. Have a drink on me (another song) down at the Town and Country etc