I’m surprised with the torque put on bottle necks by either the Durand or electric openers that I haven’t seen a busted bottle yet.
I had a neck shatter, like in the pic, using a hand corker. The cork was still 1/3" into the neck below the break point, so that’s the bottle I checked in on a few months later.
Much better than the floor corker shatter that sent a spring loaded shard an inch up my finger two days before harvest.
I was going to say, I’m surprised the friggin’ wax didn’t hold the neck together. It’s impossible to get off when you want to open a Raveneau. Shouldn’t it at least prevent problems like Alan’s?
The Raveneau wax is pretty brittle so don’t think it helps, just a PITA with no discernible added value. Tissot in the Jura uses the same crappy wax.
-Al
I was using an ah-so the other day and ran up against a cork that was just so hard and wide it equaled an exceptionally Tight Fit requiring exceptional torque. I think it was also a younger wine with a fairly heavy glass bottle… so it didn’t break… but I am relatively certain an older or less sturdy bottle could easily have broken! I think when you get used to these things routinely working so easily, particularly a Durand, there is a tendency to be less patient and more forceful. Took me close to 5 minutes to coax that cork out!
I was being facetious.
Sorry, I was blinded by my rather intense dislike of the Raveneau wax.
-Al