For The Love Of Port

I've had some bad luck over the past few months with broken corks and was wondering what corkscrew everyone uses and how they like it?

Are there any port specific corkscrews (to handle the longer cork)?

I've had the same problem, and am having much better luck with the hand-held corkscrew machines..

No fuss.. No muss..

http://www.corkscrewnet.com/ParadiHowChooseCS.htm

(half-way down the page)

great site doug, thanks.

No problem..

They are supposed to be like $70, but I found mine on sale in a mall for $20 (down from $70 something), so keep your eyes open, and shop around..

The cork screw is very thin in diameter, so it will not mangle the cork at all, if you apply slow, steady pressure.. And it goes very far down into the bottle..

Often I find I'm only going through 3/4 of the total range of motion, to avoid having to work the whole length of the cork backwards through the corkscrew to dislodge it.. :)

Screwpull - the metal version. It has a long thread and sharp point and is sufficiently well engineered that it makes light work of pretty much anything.

By contrast, the plastic version of the Screwpull is best avoided, as the handles may buckle when the unit is used to extract a tight-fitting cork.

The screwpull version is nice for young wine. A metal version has been available at Costco for about two years now for around $12.

Anything older or questionable though demands an Ahso (sic?). I HATE having cork remnant in my wine so this is a life-saver.

Jay,

You are so right, the Ah-So is the best cork puller I have bought to date. It makes getting those old VP corks out in one piece so much easier. I've started to use the Ah-So on even the younger stuff that reall doesn't need it just becuase the cork stays totally intaked and no holes. (I save a few of the corks depending on the wine/port)

Just bought today the Ah-so cork puller, wow this tool is amazing. It works so well. When I first saw it 5 years I was always woundering how this could pull a cork easily. Today the clerk teach me how to use it and tonight I tried it with Vesuvio 96 and Rauzan Segla 95 and it was so easy!!

Here is a picture of the tool :

http://www.marianne.jp/image3215.jpg

I really recommend this to anyone having 20 years old + bottle of wine having hard time getting the cork in one piece, I really do!

I'm fond of Ah-so corkscrews too. But beware: even these can fail. The problem for an Ah-so is that if a cork is loose in the neck of your bottle, it can push right into the wine -- you start to ease the Ah-so in, and thunk, the cork vanishes down and in.

So there seems not to be any single universal solution here.

Roy is said to be fond of port tongs (you crack off the neck of the bottle). Of course Roy has an iron stomach unaffected by glass shards. And likes to finish his bottles off the day he opens them...

Just a straight up waiters friend with the double hinge. Never a problem with anything even Port.

I tell you , my wife is the greatest at opening old ports with cranky corks. We have the tongs and that has worked.

We have the Ah-so, etc and those sometimes work.

BUT, she takes a heavy knife, a cleaver etc ,and in a quick blow of the backside of the knife against the little ridge at the top of the bottle, cracks the neck of the bottle and we then decant. The cork is usually still lodged in the neck and the neck is broken cleanly. It is a work of performance art and beauty.

If you have ever seen the PBS documentary on Champagne-- It opens with a military ceremony where they open a bottle of bubbly with a sabre, it is the same technique. She can do this with Bourdeaux and any wine but she does it most often with port.

A small note of caution - from painful experience..

When using the Ah-so type on a bottle with a tight cork that is quite flush, and you are having to use some force to get started...

...it is not impossible for the tine of the Ah-so to skid off the top of the bottle and into the side of your hand that is holding the neck...

...at which point Ah-so becomes Ah-%#*@!!

I feel your pain. I made that mistake only once.

I have had the most luck with the rabbit style corkscrew on port. It really centers the screw well and gives a controlled pull of the cork with a decent bite in the cork. Last fout 70's and one 83 were all out perfect.

The cyclist italophile longs for the Campagnolo Big One, which was designed to remove stuburn corks.

mosesbotbol wrote: The cyclist italophile longs for the Campagnolo Big One, which was designed to remove stuburn corks.

I must admit it is one of the nicest looking cork screws I have seen. I kick myself now for not buying one when I had the oportunity to get it at cost. But, I knew nothing about wine back then so didn't really need it then.

Do you know if they still make it?

Yes, they still make it and it sells for around $185.00 US



From Campagnolo.com:

The Campagnolo corkscrew faithfully reflects the genius of its inventor, Tullio Campagnolo. In moments of difficulty, his genius, together with his great manual skill, always produced truly revolutionary inventions.
It’s no coincidence that some considered him to be a latter-day Leonardo da Vinci.
A really awkward bottle and a corkscrew that wasn’t up to the job were the cause of this new stroke of genius that has not been bettered since 1966.
The patented system of the telescopic self-aligning cover always places the screw in the central part of the cork. The large screw in hardened steel with a wide and sharp profile provides maximum grip on the cork and the two large levers enable the corks to be pulled out of bottles of the finest vintages without disturbing the sediments that are typical of such wines.
These technical features and the use of the finest raw materials have made this corkscrew a must, a symbol of genius that is recognized throughout the world.

Ahh, the silver one is my favorite, and it looks 10 times better in person 8)

Since January, I have been using a corkscrew that Stuart Chapman was kind enough to get hold of for me. This is a simple T shaped corkscrew with an open thread that is flattened to increase the surface area of the thread and the thread also appears to be teflon coated. The point of the corkscrew is a very sharp point and the thread is longer than the other corkscrews that I was using.

Since Stuart got the corkscrew for me, I have saved a fortune in glue as I have had much more success in getting intact corks out of old bottles of wine.

Thanks Stuart! Much appreciated.

Any idea where he got it from? My regular corkscrew is a very mundane T handle job.

Whilst it works quite well, I've often thought that a spiral made from flat metal rather than round should have a theoretical advantage - as should a spiral that is a little wider than the norm.

Tom

PS I stock Copydex in 5 litre bottles...!

Tom,

It came from the Wine Society. I'm not a member but Stuart added the corkscrew as an order that he sent in around Christmas.

It is the best corkscrew that I have yet used for getting corks out of old port bottles. The extra length seems to really help keep the cork intact.

Alex