I agree 100%. Still, screwing right through `em and pulling out the cork half way, then removing the excess and shards before pulling the cork in its entirety is the best way I ever came across. What’s more, you can do it over the sink but imagine having to do this in a restaurant…
I always put them in a plastic bag, close it with one hand and and remove the wax by knocking on the capsule on top and around with a big knife ( not the cutting side ). Then open the bag carefully ,extract the bottle, get rid of the bag, clean the bottle under water and use the corkscrew. If these wax corks make sense ? At least they reduce the " angels share " why I quite often wax old, cork fragile bottles myself to minimize oxidation.
Anthony - that is a cool idea! I’ll try that next time.
My own experience is that composition of wax seems to vary. Some wax is fairly pliable, even at cellar temps. In this case I run the foil cutter’s blade up the neck, slice into the wax, then peel it off. Other wax seems to be brittle (e.g. Raveneau) and is more difficult to address. Will have to pull some bottles and experiment
Mark - it might have to do with the age of the wax. On some old Spanish bottles the wax has to be chipped off. I don’t really like the idea of running it under hot water since I want my wine cool and it seems like you’d either be shaking it up by rotating it or you’d be nicely warming the bottle.
But if it works, it may be an option.
Next time I’m going to save the wax and see if I can quickly soften it with a blowtorch. If it works quickly enough, I’ll try it on the wine bottle, or maybe try warming it over the stove real quickly. It never occurred to me but a quick blast might soften the wax. I think the wax is one of the dumbest ideas around.
Everyone knows that wine bottled with a wax seal is superior to wine with a tin capsule which are superior to wine with just a cork. I can’t believe that you don’t know this.
Next thing you’ll be telling us that cabernet in a heavy, thick bottle with a huge deep punt is not better than other cabernet.
I like to wet a washcloth then microwave it for 45 sec. Then wrapped around the cork for a bit.
Softens up all the wax coverings enough to screw thru and not chip.
I make a cut around the top like you would with a foil capsule (basically just score it so it will be more likely to crack here) and then ram the corkscrew thru and pull the cork. We just did a 10 bottle Raveneau vertical (clos) and the host spent 1/2 hour wrapping the bottles and hammering the wax to chip it off… I’d much rather damn the torpedos and get it over with.
Rub your hand briskly back and forth over the top of the wax. The friction is sufficient to soften the wax enough to cut it or extract the cork through it. Even that hard yellow stuff that Raveneau uses. Hat-tip to Manfred Krankl for first mentioning it.