Factory Design creates wine pourer and stopper for Screwpull

Factory Design has spent three years developing a product for Le Creuset-owned brand Screwpull which promises to act as a wine pourer, stopper and aerator.

The Screwpull Pourer is the third product Factory Design has made for the company, which approached the design group in 2007 and asked it to create something which could combine all three functions. ‘The finished object is almost rue to the original drawings,’ says Factory Design Director Adam White, who has negotiated with Screwpull and its Chinese toolmakers torealise the design.

‘It transpired that the industrial design was okay, but it was struggling on the choice of materials,’White says. Tolerance gaps and pressureproblems also needed close attention. ‘It needs to be faultless, so that wine can be stored on its side,’ White adds. Applied as a stopper to an open bottle, the product’s rubber grommet holds the device in place. Twisting the ‘bowl’ element90 degrees opens a valve, turning the stopper into a conduit and allowing wine to flow through a stainless steel pipe when the bottle is tipped. A bubbling action is encouraged by this rocess in the central chamber of the device, which aerates the wine, before it is poured from a spout.

White claims the bubbling action is akin to the aeration process brought on by normal decanting. Around 5000 Pourers are now being shipped to the UK from China, before being distributed to high-end retailers which, White says, may include Harrods and Selfridges department stores in London. Kitchen shops and specialists will also stock the device.