I just broke my 15 year old screwpull. What is the best corkscrew available? Thanks
How much are you willing to spend, and what do you mean by “best?” Are you more about function, looks, or both?
I am all about function. Best as in easy to use, does no damage, any size neck, older corks and wax caps, long corks. Price, Up to $150 or so.
lots of board members swear by The Durand. It retails for $130, or thereabouts, iirc.
This is somewhat subjective, but I hate Screwpulls. If you liked your last one, I’d simply buy another.
What I’d do, though, is find a couple of nice basic waiter’s style corkscrews and an Ah-So for hard to remove, crumbly, older corks. Why? Well, because the pricey corkscrews look better but for virtually all of the bottles I see they don’t open any better, faster etc. You can keep 2 or 3 of them around and an Ah-So for under $50 total.
My Screwpull broke after about 16 years. I replaced it and also bought a Coutale http://www.amazon.com/Oenophilia-900650-Coutale-Sommeliers-Corkscrew/dp/B000VB280S which I now prefer – it’s very easy to use. Advantage over the Screwpull is it gets the cork out a little faster.
+1 on the comment to get an Ah-So if you don’t have one already.
I use the LeverPull primarily. It’s the lever-operated ScrewPull. Fortunately, I bought the thing when it first came out
and had a lifetime guarantee. When it breaks, I just send it back and in a few weeks a brand new one shows up
in the mail. I tend to put a few miles on my corkscrews and so I’m on the 11’th or 12’th version.
They wised up and I think the new purchases of LeverPull have a limited time warranty.
Tom
I’m still stuck on the Screwpull, probably on my 4th one. The best for relatively young bottles. For older difficult corks, I like the Durand (cool packaging, etc) , but the same functionality can easily be accomplished with a “T” shaped corkscrew and a high quality (long blade) Ah So for a small fraction of the Durand price.
I love the Durand, but I only use it for particularly old or difficult bottles because I think it takes longer than a regular screwpull.
The screwpulls I’ve used always punture the wine side of the cork and get cork dust in the wine. Best corkscrew for other than 50 yo bottles is a $5 teflon coated waiters corkscrew.
No shame in my game…
The only one I ever use is the Monopol Ah-So. Once you get the hang of this, it becomes the easiest and best cork remover.
Two of these at our bar, one at the house, one in my golf bag, one in each of our wine totes, (2 btl and 3 btl). Haven’t had a failure yet and they are all over 4 years old.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. One Ah-So at the bar and one at the house. Had to use the Ah-So on a 1963 Dows port last night.
Yep, that’s what I use.
Indeed. The double-lever is key.
I own and really like a Thiers Sommelier: http://www.beveragefactory.com/wine/wineopeners/waiter/3292.shtml
The price may scare you off - it might me; mine was a gift - but it is a beautifully designed, solid and strong, extremely functional tool.
Disclosure: It was designed by a friend.
Yep, I have 5-6 of these (none from WE) and just love the double-lever.
Robert, forgive me if we talked about this long ago, on another forum far, far, away, but does the Le Theirs have a blade or other type of foil cutter?
Out of curiosity, how did it break? Was it a table model, the travel model, or something else?
Yes.