People have been enjoying wine for thousands of years so it's admittedly a bit presumptuous to suggest that there is anything left that can be improved upon, especially something as simple as getting the wine out of the bottle.

I'm the first to acknowledge that the consumer wine market is overrun with cheap gadgets that often wind up forgotten in the back of a drawer, rarely that useful to begin with.

But I think there are hidden pockets, blind spots, where a small innovation can have a big impact. 

My inspiration for creating something new for the wine community was The Durand. Invented in 2007, it combined two well-known bottle opening designs - the corkscrew and the Ah-So - to create a truly Ah Ha moment for wine lovers. It was so simple, yet it had a profound impact on how many of us enjoy wine.

In a similar spirit, the Jory was born out of my own frustration with the traditional decanting process.

All wine connoisseurs are familiar with the somewhat laborious task of decanting a wine off of its sediment. Usually performed over a candle light or smartphone flashlight, the process works well enough.

But as I started opening more older bottles, I quickly ran into some shortcomings of doing things the usual way.

I didn't like that I had to pour the wine through the neck of the bottle. After a couple decades, the bottleneck can become a pretty scary place and I wondered if it might be possible to avoid it entirely. Similarly, it irked me that towards the end of the long, continuous pour, the sediment began to kick up and make its way toward the neck.

I found the traditional process to be quite labor intensive, especially when decanting multiple bottles or magnums. Each pour requires complete attention and the smallest mistake can ruin it.

As I opened bottles dating back five decades or more I began to wonder if there was a way to be a bit gentler with the wine. I winced when pouring them into a decanter - they were already so fragile that the added agitation and oxygenation sometimes killed them.

I believe the Jory solves these problems and opens the door to other clever uses as well. 

Its design is an exercise in simplicity and modularity. Foregoing any flashy features or overly complicated components, the Jory is as simple as humanly possible. With no moving parts and composed of only the highest quality materials, it should last a lifetime with heavy, frequent use.

Thanks for being here. I hope the Jory brings you a new level of enjoyment the next time you open a special bottle.

-Lucas

Willamette Valley, 2025