Cut it off most of the time. Occasionally do traditional.
I agree, and always remove capsules below the lip. I saw this years ago when in Italy and have always thought it looks cleaner than cutting above the lip.
it is eiber that or drink bugs.
Start working on the capsule in the cellar after I have grabbed the bottle - if I can get it loose then take it off - otherwise traditional above the lip. For wax I go barbarian but looking for better suggestions. Of course, if it is hard to get loose then it raises suspicion of being a leaker.
Start working on the capsule in the cellar after I have grabbed the bottle - if I can get it loose then take it off - otherwise traditional above the lip.
Traditional is not above the lip. Standard of service is below the lip, both for leverage and guidance and historically to keep lead capsules away from contact with wine.
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I wish more people understood this.
Indeed. If I can, I pull the whole thing off. If not, I use a a foil cutter. They cost all of a couple bucks for 4.
One of the reasons I like Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine for bedtime reading is this gem on foil cutters
“Life without a foil cutter is quite feasible; living without one after to being introduced to it is not.”
This year I fell hard for Fourrier Gevrey Burgs and they are famously/infamously dipped in a red wax. I’ve drawn blood (my own, mostly) trying to sauvely saw that stuff off with the wicked curved little serrated blade on the end of even a good cork screw. What starts in an attempt at tableside saviore faire ends in hemorrhage. No more.
When faced with the dreaded wax now, I go direct to a decent steak knife or similar, and carefully slice off the top if its willing and the whole damned mess if its recalcitrant. As a respected Okie elder once told me: “the right tool for the right job kid.”
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I used to do that, but Don showed me how to drill through with the corkscrew and just pop the cork out. Pretend like the wax isn’t there. It’s a bit of a mess on the counter, but no emergency room visits.
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Best advice I ever got was to use a small towel or washcloth dampened with very warm water. You just hold it on the wax for a minute and it softens it up quite nicely.
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Thanks for clarifying - so cut below the lip - I am sure I have done it both ways - may have been one of those little above the lip cutters that got me in that habit. I can see how the leverage is better if holding the bottle.
This is the way. It’ll just break away as you pull the cork out.
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@Adam_Frisch uses wax capsules on his wines and I think he was the one who recommended this in a thread I read last year. After his post I started doing this (just using the corkscrew as you normally would and popping the cork out through the top of the wax or having the top of the capsule come off with the cork) and I have never had a problem since.
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There are bottles with thicker wax where that doesn’t work so well after 10-15 years, wax gets drier and tougher and cork isn’t quite as strong. But can often remove the wax on those bottles more or less like a capsule.
-Al
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But why?
If the only explanation is “because that’s the way it is supposed to be done”, I really couldn’t care less.
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I don’t drink wines with capsules, you can’t taste anything.
But, today those capsules no longer contain lead. My little device cuts the capsule just above the lip, and I am fine with that. Anyone complains . . . I’ll serve them a beer. 
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When school says you read english left to right, how is that different than standard of service saying under the lip?
Be a heathen, cut above or tear it off for all I care. Still tastes the same.
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I create a micro tear at the bottom of the capsule with my fingers, and then just peel up and remove the whole capsule.
For wax, I generally triy to open it over the sink, and just put in the corkscrew and get her done.
These are generalities because they’re specific times when I use different approaches.
That’s so savage.
-Al