Heather Kingston and EZ Rock Wine Features, Edmonton, Alberta
EZ Rock Wine Chat #5
How to open a bottle of wine.
Most corkscrews will do the job, but some are better than others. The wing style, or as I like to call it, the kitchen plunger, can often have issues. The worm, or auger, is too thick and can push bits of cork into the bottle. This does not ruin the wine, but is annoying.
The waiters corkscrew looks and operates like a pocket knife. It has a handy little knife to cut off the foil capsule. Completely remove this from the neck of the bottle for best results. Guide the worm into the cork and use the attached lever to help guide the cork out. The lever action provides easy extraction.
An Ah-So style corkscrew is one with two angled bars of metal extending from the handle. This style is very good for extracting a broken cork. You can snuggle the bars between the glass and remaining cork easily enough to ease the cork out. Barring that, there is always a pen Seanna has cleverly used to push the cork into the bottle. I believe the idea here is a glass of wine must be had no matter what the method of opening!
There are some great gadgets to open wine. Ron suggested the pressurized gas corkscrew that easily pops out the cork with a puff of neutral gas. There are large, lever corkscrews that make cork extraction a two second task with no elbow grease necessary.
For a very high end waiters corkscrew I recommend the Chateau Laguiole brand. They are approximately $200.00 each. Mine was a gift for obtaining my International Sommelier Guild diploma. I love its weight and precision. Whatever your method, enjoy the end result!
For more information go to www.alsaweb.ca or www.hlkwine.com
Heather Kingston is an International Sommelier Guild, Certified Sommelier working in Edmonton as an educator for the ISG and the Alberta Liquor Store Association.
