One of my pet hates is to have a cork-in-the-bottle disaster where the cork disintegrates and you end up with bits of cork in your wine and when somehow, a few little bits of cork always manage to avoid your most careful examination. A good bottle opener that overcomes this problem is always worthy of inclusion in your kitchen armory and these are just a few of my favourites, although I no longer have all of them and rely upon a couple of reliable types that I have around my home.
One of the easiest openers to use and which is the very same as most waiters carry about their person, i.e. the pen knife 
with a lever arrangement with a short blade to cut through the foil at the top of the bottle. Although it is quite a common bottle opener I don´t think it is necessarily the easiest to use.
I no longer wish to have a problem extracting a cork by trying to hold onto the bottle whilst a particularly stubborn specimen of a cork tries to resolutely maintain its position in the neck of the bottle, refusing to budge, in spite of my very best efforts. Thus, the traditional pull type of cork extractor that historically clutters the kitchen drawer has slowly died out and is used as a very last resort when your favourite cork screw has mysteriously hidden itself since the last dinner party. You will probably locate it later during a spring clean, hiding itself beneath a sofa trying to avoid detection.
Mechanically efficient cork screws are usually of the type that involves a screw that is turned into the cork with a sharp point, but with a wide spiral and not the spiraling wire that some manufacturers pass off as a cork extractors. The reason for this is that the cork should remain in one piece and the spiral should just be screwed in to the cork to only just pierce the bottom end of the cork but not so far as to completely pierce it. This method will enable you to pull the cork with very little effort. If you fully pierce the cork the chances are that you will have bits of cork in your wine and you will end up fishing for the bits so that you and your guests won´t be imbibing bits of cork along with the wine. This type of cork extractor comes in a number of different styles from the type with two levers that you pull down and thus extract the cork, to the wall-mounted type that you just put the neck of the bottle into and then pull the lever down and then lift. The advantage of this model is undoubtedly because you at least know where it is. It also has the advantage of making it extremely easy to remove the cork which is why I would recommend it.
A model that I enjoyed using in the past, but later managed to lose, was the air pump type that you push the very sharp point into the top of the cork, pierce as far as the bottom of the cork and then gently pump for a few strokes and, “Hey Presto”. The cork gently rises out of the bottle with a satisfying pop. No fuss. No annoying struggle and no great ceremony. Job done. People warn that the bottle might explode, but frankly I think that this is just a myth.
For hands that are suffering from arthritis, a bottle opener that requires little or no effort is a must and a few that I have liked I describe below, such as the electric bottle opener that can open up to 60 bottles of wine before needing recharging with its rechargeable battery. This is the really easy way to open bottles, but it has to be some kind of party to exhaust the battery.
There are now bottle openers that have become collectors´ items because of their age and efficiency ,but which are now out of production. The opener that springs to mind is the L´Espirit – Steel Spring which was invented around 1890. An extremely efficient opener which went out of production and which, if you can find an original, is very valuable. However, there is now a copy being made and sold, and I think you will be impressed with its functionality.
One of the growing trend amongst collectors is the collection of antique cork screws and some rare specimens demand a very high price. If you have an interest in collecting older, unique designs there is a possibility that you might spot something worth collecting in the odd car-boot sale that could either make your day a really profitable one or a bottle that is so totally reliable that it becomes a favourite conversation piece at the dinner table. Either way you might like to take a look at the antique cork screw sites on the web. I was surprised at the prices being demanded for some of the items.
Related Posts
Posted under Featured Articles
This post was written by velezmalaga on Sunday, October 12, 2008
Hi,
We are a supplier of kitech gadgets, hoping to do biz with you.
Thanks.
Jaso Zhao
Deekeen Industries corp.