Choosing From The Many Kinds Of Wine Opener
Sunday, August 15th, 2010All sorts of people, from the connoisseur to the casual drinker, will find themselves in need of a good wine opener. With so many to choose from, it is almost hard to believe that so many disparate devices all perform the same function. In their function, they are similar, but each design uses slightly different mechanics to remove a cork.
The waiter’s corkscrew is perhaps the most common type. You’re likely seen it in action already. When closed, it is compact like a Swiss army knife. When you unfold it, there is a small lever arm for bracing against the bottle. A little further down the body on the same end, there is a screw that you manually drive into the cork. Because of their placement on the device’s body, you can use the leverage of the small arm to pull the cork out of the bottle once the screw is deep enough to be secure.
In the hands of a skilled user, a quality waiter’s corkscrew works quite well. It also has the advantage of being quite easy to carry around. Quality models also have a small knife with which to cut the foil off the top of a bottle.
For some people, working the waiter’s corkscrew in at a proper angle can be difficult. Also, securely seating the lever can be tricky. For them, perhaps a winged corkscrew would be preferable.
The two opposing levers that give this design it’s name are quite distinctive. This type of opener is seen in many kitchens. The advantage of this design is the way the screw itself is mounted dead center so that as long as the opener is atop the bottle the screw will maintain the proper angle. The dual levers also make a straight, steady pull easier.
For an even easier way to reliably open bottles, take a look at tabletop models. For the unsteady hand or high-throughput restaurants, a tabletop model might be the way to go. They are large and heavier than other options, but can pull corks with great ease. In fact, some of them are even motorized so that a user need only to place the bottle properly and the contraption will handle the rest.
CO2 openers don’t use a screw at all. Instead, they use pressurized gas to push the cork out of the bottle. Getting the force of the gas from a pressurized canister, the user pushes the needle of the device into the cork until the tip protrudes into the air gap below the cork. Then, a simple push of a button sends the cork pushing out.
Of course on the other end of the spectrum, there are extremely simple screw-pulls. Some travel models are no larger than a marker when they are folded up. These minimalist devices represent a major ease-of-use trade off, since they provide only a screw with a handle. However, that is preferable to being caught with no way to open your bottle.
No matter which wine opener sounds right to you, try to have on on hand. It is a major letdown to get stuck with a bottle you wish to drink but have no way to open. A little preparation will keep your evening on track.
Nick Parker likes to drink wine. He always uses the best wine openers so that his bottles get opened nicely. He keeps a wine bottle opener review blog to recommend wine openers to others.