Corkscrewed

Junk

For assorted reasons we've switched from beer to wine. Most of the bottles we bring home are sealed with a cork (either a cork-cork or fake plastic cork), even the big bottles of Gallo that are my preference have a cork. Don't see too many twist tops, possibly because we have pretensions of some sort. Whatever. A corkscrew works well for uncorking a bottle. Corkscrews come in a wide variety of designs but almost all of them require twisting the cork into the bottle. That can be entertaining, but after a few thousand bottles it gets kind of old. Isn't there an better way? Well, yes and no. There are wine openers that use CO2 gas cartridges, and there are electric corkscrews, but I am not going to have anything to do with those. They are just silly.

Junk

Then there are the Rabbit style corkscrews. I've seen them around for a bit and they look like a good idea. Push the lever down to screw the corkscrew into the cork and then pull the lever up to remove the cork. They incorporate a little mechanical complexity, but they don't require any cartridges or batteries, they should be great, right? Well, they aren't.

Junk

I bought three over the last three months and they all failed. I still think they are a good idea, but now I am reading the reviews a little more closely and all I am finding is junk. Every single one I looked at had a review that claimed the device broke almost immediately. Of course they are all made in China, maybe even all in the same factory using the same molds. But you would think that they would have some quality control, wouldn't you? I mean we get all kinds of high-tech gadgets out of China. Why can't they build a decent corkscrew?