text: 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. ||||| For some reason, wine dripping down the side of the bottle when you pour it has become as accepted an inevitability as death and taxes (both of which some people probably consider preferable to dripping wine). Wine accessory companies sell products specifically built to address this problem. Even highly-trained sommeliers resort to wrapping a napkin bandana around the bottle’s neck as if that Cabernet Sauvignon is some Wild West outlaw up to no good. But a Brandeis University physicist believes he has solved the problem – and all it took was a two millimeter tweak in the bottle itself. 
   
   In looking to solve this issue, Daniel Perlman – a biophysicist at the Massachusetts university – wondered if the bottle might be the cause. According to the school, the modern wine bottle design has been around since the 1800s, meaning it was ripe for innovation – and hopefully an end to 200 years of drips. “I wanted to change the wine bottle itself,” Perlman said. “I didn't want there to be the additional cost or inconvenience of buying an accessory.” 
   
   He began by studying slow-motion videos of wine being poured, eventually attributing some of the blame to the fact that glass is hydrophilic, meaning it attracts water. His solution: Build what is essentially a miniature moat between the lip of the bottle and the neck. This small circular groove, only two millimeters in width, is apparently enough to prevent wine from heading towards a pourer’s hand instead of the glass. “For a drop of wine to make it across Perlman's groove, it would have to travel up inside the groove against the force of gravity or have enough momentum to jump from one side of the groove to the other,” BrandeisNOW explains. “After many tests, Perlman found the perfect width, roughly 2 millimeters, and depth, roughly 1 millimeter, for the groove so that the wine stream can't get passed it.” 
   
   Perlman reportedly already has over 100 patents to his name, though for wine drinkers, this one might stand as his crowning achievement. However, in fixing the bottle itself, Perlman does create one major hurdle to bringing his solution to the masses: Unlike an accessory, which anyone can purchase, Perlman’s innovation would have to be built-in by bottle manufacturers. This would likely increase basic production costs, not to mention Perlman and his cohorts getting their cut. But innovation has swept through the beverage industry before – remember when not all cans were wide-mouths? – so maybe a drip-free future is within our reach. 
   
   “Perlman is currently speaking with bottle manufacturers about adopting his design,” Brandeis writes. So I guess the process is in early enough stages that we can’t say goodbye to those napkin bandanas quite yet.
target: – It may be a first-world problem—that little drip of wine that slides annoyingly down the neck of a bottle after it's been poured—but to one scientist, it was simply a physics challenge waiting to be overcome. Biophysicist Daniel Perlman at Brandeis University, an inventor with more than 100 patents under his probably well-designed belt, says he's solved the age-old problem by etching a small groove into the bottle itself, per Phys.org. (You can see a demonstration via this video.) To arrive at his solution, Perlman studied slow-mo videos of wine being poured, then calculated precisely how large of an edge would be required to catch the offending drip. The answer: 2mm wide, 1mm deep. Gizmos already are on the market to stop the spills, while sommeliers might use a napkin to deftly wipe the bottle after a pour, but Perlman wanted to simplify things. "I wanted to change the wine bottle itself," thus avoiding the need for an accessory, he says. Bloggers sound intrigued. The drip issue is a "pretty obvious" flaw that has been allowed to linger for as long as wine bottles have been made, complains a post at BGR. Another at Food & Wine notes that an industry-wide fix would likely raise manufacturing costs. "But innovation has swept through the beverage industry before—remember when not all cans were wide-mouths?—so maybe a drip-free future is within our reach." (How does neon-blue wine sound?)