Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/29/never-cork-your-wine-again.html
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It doesn’t work. I tried one on my bottle of Mateus, and it just tore the cap all up.
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This looks like a solution in need of a problem to me. Much like the kitchen abomination that is the garlic-press.
These yokes do the job without much fuss:
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Until they break or you don’t get the right amount of depth in your screw and the lever is an abomination to work with. Or you have a bottle of wine that has a weird rounded lip the level won’t catch on.
YMMV but I have had much better luck with a rabbit style opener than I ever have had with the waiter style.
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These lever style openers are much easier. Sorry.
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Easier than the easiest possible thing? It takes me about 5 seconds to take off the cork with one of them, even if this thing manages to shave a second off that time, so what?
Maybe I’ve just been lucky with the bottles of wine that I’m opening, but I’ve never had a problem with them, and I open far too many bottles of wine than I should.
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'Cork taint is a broad term referring to a wine fault characterized by a set of undesirable smells or tastes found in a bottle of wine […] and a wine found to be tainted on opening is said to be “corked” or “corky.”'
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My whiskey bottle yielded the same results.
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True, but much more expensive. Also you might be surprised at the many good bottles of wine that come with screw caps. You can even put them back on for the rare occasion when you don’t finish the bottle in one sitting. I have a bunch of different Carménère from Chile with screw caps that I like.
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I need to know more about how it works and how it is made - NOT a link to where I could buy one.
The engineering is good! The commerce is evil!
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Both Rabbit and Waiter style make a real mess of my wine.
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Until the nonstick coating on the screw loses its slickness, then they’re terrible. Replacements for the Rabbit lever openers (we have one) are cheap and easy to find because they share the specs with several other lever corkscrew makers, but the OXO design looks marginally different.
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Well, mine hasn’t broken yet (5 years and counting). and the lever is no effort to use. Note that the one @caze shows is the restaurant standard, a Pulltap double-lever corkscrew, which has two fulcrums to rest against the bottle, so the cork is started easily and pulled completely. Not all waiter-style corkscrews have this feature.
If I had 10 or more bottles to open all at once, I might consider a Rabbit or similar style, but for my purposes I’ve never felt the need for anything fancier.
Came here to say this. “Corked” refers to the mildewy smell of a bad cork, not bits of cork in the wine.
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I have one (not this brand), I like it very much and use it for most of the wine I open, but it is the hardest corkscrew I’ve ever owned for centering the screw in the middle of the cork. Maybe 20% of the time I use it I am off-center enough that I get worried about whether I will be able to get the cork out in one piece. (Usually I’m OK, but not always.)
One pretty big advantage of the lever-style opener like @jlw’s Oxi or my Rabbit is that it also centers the screw in the cork.
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I’ve had that problem. The mind game (one weird hack!) I use to overcome this is to imagine a line running down the center of the helix, and align that by eye with the center of the cork. This means the point starts quite off center, but carry on - the result is a reasonably well-centered screw.
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This is not what “corked wine” means. [Everyone has already said that.]
Exactly. There’s a reason why they are in every waiter’s pocket, and the wines at the restaurant are opened in five seconds and the corks are never broken. (Unless you’re drinking vintage port or something.)
The one @caze posted is the best style, with the little hinge on the lever. Learn how to open with that, and you’ve learned a skill that will be useful for the rest of your life, where ever you go.
They are cheaper than this tool (even the fancy ones are half the price), prettier, smaller, and significantly faster. And they won’t break after three years, like this piece of plastic.
If you’re splitting your corks with it, think of it as a great opportunity to actually practice and learn how to use it. I open a bottle almost every night, and have not split a cork since college.
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I agree for the most part. My favorite is the zippity opener.
That said, for some older bottles, it’s good to have one of those “ah so” openers handy.
I was at a friend’s house the other night and brought one of my older bottles of Ridge Lytton Springs zin over - 2006, I think, and it was awesome - but the cork broke in half. I was careful. I got the top part above the split out, then used her opener to get the bottom part out, thankfully. But I’ve had them come apart worse before.
As for the twist caps mentioned above, I actually look for them specifically when going for “daily” drinkers. Especially whites that will only get partially finished then go back in the fridge.
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My wife loves her Rabbit version of this type of corkscrew…
I love my Robut corkscrew (it also centers the screw).
Changing into my silver spandex before using it adds a bit of time to the process, but it really is integral.
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Ahem…
…I’m not sure if I want to see the infomercial for that feature or not…“How many times has this happened to you…”
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