Used it last night at a restaurant. The waiter was opening a 2008 and the cork was crumbling.
I stopped him and the Durand saved the bottle. I carry the durand in my wine bag.
If they werenāt so damn expensive, Iād have a travel one.
I donāt think I have a rule of thumb, but in practice, Iād say that at home, it comes out if the wine is > 15. If the wine is from the 80s, I will carry mine to the restaurant too. It is geeky enough to bring wine from home (though my wife has gotten used to it), but the geek quotient rises immeasurably when you bring your corkscrew too and ask the waiter to allow you to do the extraction. Iāve received odd looks, almost always from my wife, not the waiter
There is a pocket in the back of my bag(mulholland) where I keep the durand. I only take it out if there is a problem no matter how old the wine is. Usually the waiter appreciates it.
That makes sense, generally. But I had one bottle (an '83 Riesling) where just a very slight pressure on the cork pushed it in. Had I put a screw in, it would have been saved.
FWIW the wine was OK, I just poured it out into a pitcher.
f you must know! it was a 2004 Agharta made by Pax Mahle before he went over to the dark side.
Whew, thought you were drinking more tired stuff from the 70s!
For me, itās less about the age of the wine and more about the issue with the cork.
If the cork is welded to the sides of the bottle, the corkscrew can simply excavate a tunnel through the cork, so the Ah-So is useful. But if the cork is crumbly and loose, the Ah-So can push it in and then, when you try to gently twist it out, it sometimes breaks the cork down near the bottom and you end up with a little disc of cork in the bottle neck. Those corks are the ones for which the Durand is most useful. But you never know when you start out and it happens to both young and old corks.
About this old. Time for a Durand.
Holy cow!!! I had no idea how much the Durand costs! That is highway robbery! I have an Ah-So and it works like a charm every time Iām opening an older bottle, which for me is usually anything pre-2000, just to be safe. The thing cost me $15 at some winery in Napa and I swear buy it.
It is my go to for bottles from the 90ās and older (too many bad outcomes thinking corks looked good to hold up against a traditional corkscrew) so that puts me in the >15 yrs camp. Although, if things start getting dicey on something younger I am quick to swap out for the Durand and finish the job which has happened only a handful of times.
JW
This is why I completely remove the capsule on 99% of the bottles I open. It gives the chance to get a sense of cork condition through the glass - if itās soaked, etc. If thereās any doubt, I go straight to the Durand. Otherwise, 20+ years is my threshold.
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What an amazing photo. You should sell that to Durand, it would make a great ad for them. āCouldāve had a V8,ā for the baby boomers who remember that ad.
I have friends who get around the cost of a Durand by putting a worm screw in the cork at an angle so they can also fit an Ah-so on the sides of the cork.
This is why I completely remove the capsule on 99% of the bottles I open. It gives the chance to get a sense of cork condition through the glass - if itās soaked, etc. If thereās any doubt, I go straight to the Durand. Otherwise, 20+ years is my threshold.
Cheers!
MikeHappily ITB
+1
You need lessons. do not put the tines through the slots when opening the bottle. It goes at 90 degrees from the slots. The slots are for storage. I think itās easy to use and I was expecting some people to say ābetter safe than sorry. Use it always.ā
I once brought it to a restaurant and the waiter thought I was nuts. About 20 minutes later, the waiter came over to me, said they were having a problem with a cork at another table, and asked if he could borrow the Durand. I said it would take too long to teach him how to use it, so I got up, walked across the room, and extracted the cork myself. The diner at the other table wrote down the name and I said . . . Durand, donāt leave home without it.
Apart from the thrill of keeping the table spellbound with your surgical skill in extracting a weak cork, why not just push the cork from the inside out with the Corkpops opener?https://www.amazon.com/Cork-Pops-Legacy-Bottle-Opener/dp/B00092M4AI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1468553446&sr=8-3&keywords=corkpops I use it everyday, but it seems particularly well suited to weaker corks. Itās sort of like the Coravin in that you just have to poke a small needle thru the cork and let pressurized gas push the cork out. Itās bound to be easier to insert without fear of pushing the cork in than with either a corkscrew or an ah so, and it would seem to eliminate the crumbling issue. Too gauche?
Have you used one of them yourself? Can you tell us from experience how good it works?
This is probably what makes the most senseā¦
I think an Ah So is quite easy to useā¦so it probably makes sense to always use it unless it starts pushing the cork inā¦where the Durand will start to shine and you know there is more than enough room to use itā¦vs. young wines the Durand seems to be worseā¦
Although in our tasting groupā¦several people have a Durandā¦that logic doesnāt always get applied 
.
Iāve had terrible luck with Corkpops. I bought it specifically to use with large - 3 litre or more - bottles over 20 years old. Ah Sos and Durands are too narrow to use with the larger corks and a waiterās corkscrew will frequently pull the center out of the cork as it softens over time. The Corkpops had 2 problems: first, the needle was too short for many of the corks. Instead of injecting into the bottle, the gas just escaped back past the needle. The second issue was if I could get the gas into the bottle, it escaped past the side of the cork without moving the cork itself. Iāve tried it on a couple of dozen of bottles over the past few years and it didnāt work once.
I should say that I donāt have real experience with Cork Pops on older bottles ā it just seemed theoretically well suited. I have only used mine on 750s and so havenāt encountered corks long enough to cause a problem with needle depth. I also havenāt used it on bottles that are old enough to be as loose as you describe. The only problem Iāve encountered has been the opposite ā one just-bottled with DIAM gewurz was too tight for the Cork Pops opener to budge. I guess the other issue is tartrates adhering to the cork can become shrapnel, but that doesnāt really bother me. Otherwise, I use it all the time without trouble. Itās particularly good for tastings where youāre opening a ton of bottles because itās really fast ā both in extraction and in getting the cork off the opener, which involves about half a twist of the base. Iām not affiliated. It was just a raffle prize from my kidās soccer fundraiser that I regarded as a gimmick and chucked in a drawer for several months. I think I gave it a whirl when I couldnāt find my waiterās friend (now relegated to backup status) and became a believer.
I routinely use Cork Pops on bottles 20-50+ years old and can count on one hand the number of times it has failed. The main issue is deteriorated corks that can no longer hold pressure and bleed out gas as you inject it. Despite being a relatively simple device, there is a lot of technique that can add to your success rate. I canāt really see any value in a Durand given how easy and fast the Cork Pops is.
Is there any cheaper alternative to a Durand? $125 for a corkscrew just screams ridiculous to any average person (not to WBs). Has anyone found a good combination of a corkscrew and an Ah-so?