The birthday of a hard to buy-for family member is coming up. So… I browsed some best seller gifts. Now, I knew almost anything that can be done manually can also be done using electricity. It turns out you can now buy an electric wine opener.
In comments on the post about the carbon protest, I promised Paulus more boring videos. So, you might wonder: Is there a youtube video for this? Of course! There are several. Some are clearly made by professionals. But I liked this one:
On the other hand, if you want to save energy, you might google to find this manual lever style cork puller. The video is 13 seconds; watch how fast this works:
If anyone recognizes this particular cork puller, let me know. I want one!
Needless to say: This is an open thread. The relative merits of French Wine vs. California wine is on topic, but you are also allowed to go off topic.
This looks to work the same way:
http://drinkgifts.com/Cork%20Puller.htm
http://www.winestuff.com/acatalog/Lever_Models.html
http://www.beveragefactory.com/wine/openers/lever.shtml
http://www.target.com/gp/search/179-7844838-6540645?field-keywords=cork_puller&AFID=yahoocom&CPNG=Kitchen&LNM=cork_puller&LID=14227913&ref=tgt_adv_XSYH0752
And let’s not forget the foil cutters and cork retrievers!!!
http://www.beveragefactory.com/wine/openers/accessories.shtml
The current ad on the right from “Metrokane” has 2 of the same style de-corkers for which you are looking.
I have one of those manual gizmos, picked up for about £5 from one of our supermarkets over here (Lidl’s or Aldi’s – do you have those? The sort of places that stock lots of cheap knock-off junk in between the cans and the veg). It does work as demonstrated, but has some trouble with plastic corks. Personally I prefer screw-tops anyway :-).
If you or someone you know is even moderately serious about wine, you or they need a two prong cork puller to deal with fragile corks in older bottles. The prongs are inserted on either side of the cork using a rocking motion (push down one side at a time) so as not to push the cork into the bottle. Then the cork is removed with a pulling and twisting motion. The modern screw caps are really much better than corks. They don’t dry out or rot.
KuhnKat
That’s magic! If I blog, the google ads work miracles and find the product. I dont’ even need to ask readers. (I’ll be doing this again.)
I already have one of those aeroator things showing in the ad.
The fancy cork screws work well for a while, but become increasingly unreliable as the screw gets pushed out of perfect alignment. After a year or so (at least at my drinking level) they become almost unusable. And they really hate plastic/rubber coated corks.
The two prong cork pullers are great and last essentially for ever, but don’t use them to open dessert wines in small bottles.
I’ve never tried electric wine, so I don’t know what kind of opener it needs.
I had a battery-operated opener…it seemed to have issues with about 25% of bottles I opened. It eventually was dropped, split-open, and broke – no big loss. It’s back to manual for me. No fancy gimmickry. Old-school manual openers do great.
As far as French vs Cali wines…gimme some Oregonian stuff!!!
Found a very nice rabbit corkscrew (the type in the bottom video) in a local wholesale club store for $10. It’s all metal and works fabulously well (in addition, makes a great and quite modestly priced gift!!!). Had a mostly plastic rabbit for a couple years… didn’t hold up well, got harder and harder to use and eventually broke. Haven’t tried the battery operated extractors, but then again, I find there’s no need… the basic rabbit works so well and with so little effort, why bother?
BTW: To those who recommended the “butlers friend” two pronged cork extractor, I have NEVER had success with them. Have ended up pushing in corks more often than extracting them. Perhaps it’s just me, but if you’re just getting into wine, would steer clear of the pronged extractors.
Bruce
I like the lever style that waiters use. I bought a very nice one in a wine merchants in Toulouse about 10 years ago. It has a built in knife for removing the seal and fits easily into a trouser pocket.
Prior to that I used a two pronged one, as described by DeWitt, which broke after about 20 years of continuous use. Another advantage of the two pronged cork puller is that you can also use it to put the cork back in the bottle – very handy when tasting wine to see if it’s ready for drinking.
I’m on my second of the lever action ones, I snapped the lever on the first but my wife finds the lever action necessary so we got a replacement but I use a waiters friend like Chris likes after the snapping incident and wien (luckily white) all over the fall.
On a slightly related topic there is more than French or Califorinan wine — next time buy Aussie
I’m very tempted by the lever action. But the issue of plastic corks…. that’s a problem.
I like French, California, Washington, Chileans, Aussie. . .
I’ll admit it: I like most red wines provided they are not over-oaked. I once drank Michigan wine. That was more than 20 years ago, and I can’t say I was eager to repeat the experience. Still, maybe they’ve improved? Still, I don’t see many Michigan wines on the shelf.
“‘Yarn bombers’ take on Vancouver streets”
In your current review of the output of the Met Office I wondered if you’d seen this piece:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090225.html
I like the juxtaposition of these two statements:
“…it is expected to be the coldest UK winter since 1995/96, according to provisional Met Office figures.”
“…if it had not been for the general warming already observed in global temperatures, this winter may well have been even colder.”
Of course they’re not mutually exclusive, but an argument that runs, “AGW means milder winters… but we had a harsh winter… which would have been harsher if not for AGW” feels a little unsubstantiated to me.
As an amateur maker of fruit wines (e.g., apple, peach, cherry), I’ve totally converted to synthetic corks. No need for soaking corks prior to use, no need to store bottles on their sides, fewer flaws. My daughter gave me a screw-type opener marketed by Pampered Chef which works quite well, using only a twisting acion to completely withdraw the cork. It does pierce through the cork, making it useless to reinsert in the bottle, but I never do that anyhow.
I am rather partial to the Aussie Black Swan. The Merlot and Shiraz Cabernet are quite tasty and very inexpensive. What more to ask??