Diana Mullins of the internet asks, “Pray tell, what are those other techniques for opening a bottle of red?”
Diana, thank you for your question. For those of you who missed the recent deep dive into the Swiss Army Knife that comprises the main arsenal of my “everyday carry”, I had mentioned that I had foregone the corkscrew option when choosing my Swiss Army model because of the extra pocket space it takes up. I went on to mention that this is ok because I know a couple other ways to open a bottle of red. I’m happy to share those now, and note that for all of these techniques below, the first thing you want to do is remove the foil from the cork end of the bottle.
The easiest method is to simply shove the cork down into the bottle using a dowel, stick, wand, screwdriver, wooden spoon handle, or writing utensil. A little wine will sploosh up and out when your cork successfully plunges down, so wrap a rag or towel around the top of the bottle with your free hand, and shove your poker through it. Once the cork is pushed in, use your poker to prevent it from occluding the bottle neck as you pour.
That is usually pretty manageable, but if for some reason you can’t achieve this breach, you can also pick and pry out a lot of the cork piece by piece, which makes it easier to then push down the smaller cork remnant, but also tends to leave bits of cork floating in your wine. I have had worse problems in life than spitting out cork bits as I enjoy my inebriant, but it’s still less than ideal.
If you have access to some tools and hardware, you can drive a screw into the cork, but with this caveat: although cork is harvested from the Quercus suber, or Cork Oak, it’s not quite proper wood. It’s actually the pillowy inner bark of that tree, and if you’re at all familiar with its unique consistency, it should be easy to imagine that a screw would thread into it quite easily. Herein lies the problem, because that means the screw will also strip out of its soft hole with commensurate ease. Therefore, the finer your threads, the weaker the screw’s grip will be, and the coarser your threads, the stronger the grip. The stronger the grip, the greater your chances of soon sipping an oaky Cabernet.
Once you have threaded your screw nearly all the way into the cork, leaving a protrusion of say 3/16 to a quarter inch, you can then use the claw end of a hammer or a catspaw, or else a pair of locking pliers like vise-grips to gingerly pry or grip-and-extract the cork from the bottle.
A final method which I have only tried once requires a sturdy shoe and a stout wall, ideally of stone or concrete. Stand the bottle in the shoe, ideally an athletic shoe or an Oxford or loafer style, then grip the bottle in one hand and the back of the shoe heel in the other. The objective is to strike the heel of the shoe, covering the bottom of the wine bottle, against the wall forcefully, so the shoe heel cushions the blow and protects the glass from shattering.
The percussive force will cause the liquid to want to be displaced, and the weakest spot of resistance is the cork, so it will begin to inch out bit by bit as you continue to strike the wall with the shoe-bottle combo. Be sure to keep the bottle pressed into the shoe as you swing so that they land on the wall together. It take some muscle and several swings, but the cork should eventually protrude enough that you can grip it and twist it the rest of the way out with your hand.
Actually, an even easier, and final, way to eschew the corkscrew altogether would of course be to drink wine only from a box, dandelion-style mason jar, or screw-top bottle. Oh, great, now I’m thirsty.
Diana, thanks again for your fine question, and cheers to all.
Love,
Muleteers, please continue to enjoy the partial load for free, or else get the entire breadth of my compost by becoming a paying subscriber. Either way, do please leave me your questions in the comments, including where you’re from. Please and thank you.
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