Needle Assembly

Pungo: to pierce into (Latin)

At the heart of the Pungo is the needle assembly, which is comprised of six 304 stainless-steel parts, silver-brazed into one solid component designed to withstand the stress of commercial environments. While intuitively it may seem that the large needle would simply push a wine cork into the bottle, an ultra-low-friction coating applied in six layers allows the needle to glide through most corks with very little effort. Further, being able to successfully Pungo a cork demonstrates that it hasn't lost resilience nor grip in the bottle neck, which is a good indication that the closure has remained intact.

The large needle has several advantages. It allows dual channel-flow, where inert gas enters the bottle as wine is dispensed in a smooth laminar stream, which avoids aeration. The choice to aerate your wine should be yours, not the device's. The large needle allows extremely low-pressure operation, on the order of 1-2 psi. Besides being inherently safe, this extremely low pressure prevents the wine from absorbing inert gas during dispensing and long-term storage. The absorption of gas can materially affect the taste of wine, essentially decanting it in the bottle. This can adversely affect older, more fragile wines.