Some household items have remained exactly the same for so long that you never really imagine that they could be improved upon, even if they have some pretty obvious flaws. Wine bottles fall perfectly into that category. Sure, they’re not perfect, but they’re so simple and have gone without significant improvement or changes for so long that there’s little chance they’ll ever evolve, right? Not so fast. An extremely bright gentleman by the name of Daniel Perlman set his sights on improving the wine bottle, and seems to have succeeded wildly by inventing a wine bottle that doesn’t drip when pouring.
Perlman, an inventor and patent holder who also happens to be a biophysicist at Brandeis University, studied how wine hugs the edge of bottle spouts after being poured. It typically results in wine running down the neck of the bottle and dripping onto whatever is beneath. Perlman figured out that by adding one small groove around the lip of the bottle opening he could change the behavior of the liquid at the end of the pour. Instead of hugging the bottle, the wine fails to bridge the gap and simply falls directly into its intended vessel until it stops coming out entirely.
The grooved tip is just two millimeters wide, but a video showing Perlman’s alteration in action shows just how well it really works in comparison to the original, very basic wine bottle design. According to Brandeis University, Perlman is currently shopping his invention to wine bottle manufacturers who may adopt the idea.
