Corkscrews: A gift for every wine lover
Corkscrews: A gift for every wine lover
It's gifting season! Treat your favorite wine lover to an opener that reflects their style, use case, and the types of wine they enjoy.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked into gift corkscrews, but a friend recently asked me for recommendations, so here are a few thoughts.
At its core, every corkscrew solves the same problem: pulling a cork out of a bottle. But depending on your hand strength, grip, or upper-body strength, that task can range from effortless to deeply annoying. One reason I could never be a sommelier is that, on occasion, I’ve had to brace the bottle with my feet while wrestling a cork loose. Not exactly glamorous.
Waiter’s Key ($9): Basic? Maybe. But this is still the tool I use every day, even when opening more than ten bottles in a sitting. A good hinged lever design makes it surprisingly efficient, especially for anyone with limited upper-body strength. Most also include a crown-cap opener for pét-nats or craft beer, which makes it handy to keep in a glove box for après-ski emergencies or tailgate heroics.
Winged Corkscrew ($30): Honestly, this is my least favorite style, but I included it because several of my friends refuse to abandon theirs. In theory, the wings provide leverage; in practice, I still end up with the bottle pinned between my feet trying to muscle the cork out after the arms bottom out. Your mileage may vary.
RBT Lever Corkscrew ($70): The original Rabbit was one of my all-time favorite corkscrews. Bulky, yes, but the lever action was smooth as butter and nearly effortless. The downside was durability. I managed to break two of them within three years. This newer RBT version looks sturdier, though only time will tell whether it actually holds up.
Craighill Wine Key ($98): An expensive and very stylish reinterpretation of the classic waiter’s key. The ratcheting mechanism adds leverage and genuinely makes opening bottles easier. The question is whether that improvement justifies the price tag. Still, it’s undeniably cool.
Peugeot Elis Touch Rechargeable Corkscrew ($125): It never occurred to me to own an electric corkscrew, and I’m still not convinced I ever will. But if lack of grip strength or upper-body strength is the issue, this absolutely solves the problem. The stubborn athlete inside me still insists I could open the bottle faster by hand than any machine, though that’s probably not always true.
L’Atelier du Vin Oeno Motion Wood ($160): This appears to function similarly to the old Rabbit design but looks significantly more robust. At $160, the value proposition becomes questionable, but aesthetically it’s beautiful — sleek, mechanical, and vaguely lascivious — so it gets points from me. Also, despite what Reddit may claim, you can absolutely be both a wine professional and gloriously lazy.
The Durand ($130): For anyone who drinks mature wine regularly, this is less a luxury and more an essential tool. The Durand combines an Ah-So with a traditional corkscrew, allowing fragile, decades-old corks to be removed with dramatically less risk of crumbling. It’s probably the single best tool available for opening old bottles successfully. And yes, it may finally free you from filtering cork debris through a tea strainer at the dinner table.
