Fri 4 Jun 2010
Lo, my children, such a thing has never happened in my many years of extracting corks from wine bottles, thousands of wine bottles.
Look at the picture. Yes, that’s my treasured Laguiole corkscrew, a gift, broken by the cork in this bottle of Bastianich Tocai Plus 2006, Friuli, which, as it happens, is a terrifically suave, layered and delicious wine. Now the bizarre accident didn’t occur as I was trying to lever the cork from the bottle. No, this happened when I was trying to insert the screw into the cork, which felt like iron. It took a mighty effort just to get the screw to scratch the surface of the cork. It was like trying to dig a hole with a shovel in dry, rocky soil. As I attempted to cope with this anomalous situation, I looked at LL, who raised her eyebrows and said, “Having a problem?” I replied, “Lord have mercy, this is the hardest cork I have ever seen,” meanwhile grunting with the effort and, naturally, swearing a bit. And then the screw part of the corkscrew snapped.
How do I know what the wine tasted like?
Later, I put the bottle in the sink and cracked the neck with repeated blows of a rubber mallet. I mean, what else?
June 4th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
One should always have a two-pronged puller on hand…
June 5th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Wow! You know, I’ve heard people say those Laguoiles are overrated. Perhaps so. Anyhow, I like jb’s, a two-pronged puller as a backup – I’m going to get one. As for the predicament you faced, perhaps you tried this, but I would have given a go at twisting the remnant corkscrew out with a pair of pliers, or, failing that, pulling the whole mess out with a pair of pliers.
June 5th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
There’s a few other tricks like inserting a sheetrock screw with a drill and then using a claw hammer to remove the cork. They still require a lot of force on the bottle and the potential for it all being slammed to the floor or otherwise breaking is high.
Screwcaps are my favorite enclosure for drink-now wines, but I’ve opened enough that I’ve encountered some that aren’t quite put together right–the whole thing just spins rather than the top cap breaking away from the collar. Then I have to get two pairs of pliers to turn the sections in opposite directions to open the bottle.
At times like this, I start to wonder about going back to a leather bag with a spigot on one end…
June 6th, 2010 at 6:14 am
i think i have a two-prong in a drawer somewhere; i haven’t seen it in years. they used to call them the “Ah-So” opener, but I don’t remember why. and perhaps part of the fault was the cork-screw, i dunno. and isn’t there some ancient technique of slicing off the neck with a hot sword?
June 7th, 2010 at 2:31 am
I’m sorry about your Laguiole! Don’t they have lifetime warranties?
I’ve broken my share of worms in my life, and Ive always simply gone into the cork with a second corkscrew and pulled out the cork, broken worm and all..
I’ve opened hundreds of bottles of PLUS and never broke a corkscrew, but there’s always a first!
I’m glad you liked the wine…
July 4th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Next time, if you can’t locate the two prong puller, try this: http://www.wimp.com/wineshoe/