I used to have a really nice ah-so opener. Very thin and strong, and perfectly curved. I was on travel, and my wife decided to clean out my kitchen tool drawer and gave it away, leaving me with a nearly worthless one that looked nicer. I’m still looking for one as nice. I was at an estate sale and saw a “CorkPops” opener with a bunch of cartridges and got it for a few dollars. Works great, but I would never try to open an old wine with it. The price of the cartridges has gotten too high to make it cost effective, so it’s time to buy a Monopol.
I use the “Lever” style Screwpull (originally the “Leverpull”, I think?) as a first choice just because it is quick and easy, unless the cork is old and I am fearful. If the cork is dry and crumbly and the Leverpull is not going to work, I reach for the Monopol Ah-so (and I do agree that quality matters), particularly if the cork is not old and I am less afraid the cork will push down into the bottle. If the cork is wet and breaking apart or breaks in half after using the Leverpull and I worry it will push down, then it’s on to the Durand, which has saved quite a few bottles.
In other words. I go for quick and easy, which for me is the Leverpull, unless the cork is telling me it’s going to be annoying.
Cork pops can be effective, but I also wonder about the short term consequence of blanketing the wine in CO2. I imagine any effects would blow off with a little bit of time, but with a pop and pour are you tasting any artifacts of the CO2 burst?
The risk with buying used ah-sos is that with use the metal tongs will eventually fatigue and break. This isn’t too much of a problem if you have backup openers, but I took my formerly trusty and very much vintage ah-so on a trip a few years ago and didn’t have a backup when it broke off in the bottle. I bought a Monopole to replace it when we got home.
You went from ah-so to aw, crap.
It was new at purchase.
The gas is R-134a. Colorless and tasteless. Never noticed anything odd with it. Just that the refills have about tripled in price in the last few years.
I use an Ah So exclusively to open most bottles of wine (including previously using it for older bottles of wine). Most of this is probably captured in some form above, but I’ll summarize some salient points for me:
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The Durand is incredibly expensive and I resisted buying one for many years. I am not sure you need it for less expensive bottles if it is does not bother you for the rest of the night if you accidentally put a cork through the bottle with an Ah So – something that happens from time-to-time with older or compromised corks for even the most experience Ah So users.
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I bought a Durand (like the next day) after I put the cork through on a 1990 bottle of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild that my father asked me to open for a family celebration. That one did bother me for the rest of the night. The Durand has NEVER failed me once in the last 5 years. I recently used it on a bottle of 2000 Chateau Pavie that was stored upright for the first 20 years of its life by its former owner. He had other bottles where the cork basically fell apart no matter what he tried (as you might expect). No problem for the Durand. I think it is perfectly worth it if you are opening rare or expensive older bottles of wine on occasion.
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The Durand has a longer corkscrew than many corkscrews (most by my account), but there are corkscrews that you can find that are as long – but you need to be aware of that and get a longer one if you want to jury rig a corkscrew/Ah So combination. Other than the length of the corkscrew, the key difference for me in the use of a corkscrew/Ah So vs. a Durand is that the Durand corkscrew has an indentation on the top where the Durand Ah So portion fits into it. It allows the Durand Ah So to go at least 1/4" further into the bottle and that is already considering that the Durand Corkscrew is relatively thin even without the indentation. Many corkscrews have a fatter handle that are not going to allow the Ah So used on top of it to go very far into the bottle. This may not mean much, but if you are fighting a frightful cork, it could possibly be the difference for some pulls. I suppose if you find a long corkscrew with a really shallow/thin handle, that would reduce this advantage the Durand has.
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I like the Monopol the best of the more expensive Ah Sos, but I will say that the two I have owned (both German built) have both started to rust after about 6-7 years of use. Perhaps a reasonable service life for a “relatively” inexpensive wine tool. Once the finish comes off they rust and they do start to pull/scrape the cork more. There is no doubt they are among the thinnest and based shaped prongs though. You can find cheaper ones that work as well, but that will be hit or miss as most of the cheap ones I have used are just terrible. I do have a $4 one that I got while on vacation out of necessity that has thin prongs and it is still going strong 10 years later. Still waiting for that Ah So to go Ah Crap on me.
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Jim F asked about the Rabbit Ah-So above. I have it and I do not like it. Seems to be made of decent materials, but the prongs on mine are thicker and it is definitely harder to work and more prone to push the cork through as a result.
Cheers!
Very interesting that you are experiencing rusting. I have/had three West German built Ah So’s (one from the late 70’s and the others before 1990) and none have any rust at all. One resides with my BIL and doesn’t get that much use but was rust free as of thanks giving.
I was surprised too. Both were purchased through Amazon from Westmark through the Monopol Germany store (one directly by me and one as a gift to me). They worked really well for several years and then I first noticed that they seem to be grinding the sides of the bottle when coming up versus smoothly sliding out. The finish on them definitely looks like it has worn off. The rusting came a little after that, though only in spots and not as if it is rusted through. Thinking back, I will say that those Monopols have been used to open a lot of old Auslese (which is my wife’s favorite wine). Most of those corks are definitely saturated through and I am sure there has been some consistent liquid-to-steel presence as I doubt they were consistently washed or dried. That has not happened with the other cheaper Ah So that has worked well for the last 10 years and it certainly has been used to open a lot of old Auslese. I went back and checked the brand of that one last night – it is Franmara.
That looks like a newer model than the ones I have
The tines seem much thinner than those in your picture.
I really just think that is an optical illusion based on the shadow caused by the flash in my picture. The prongs are really thin.
I think you are correct.
One thing I have noticed on cheap "Ah=So"s is the the tines are almost straight and thicker while the ones I own are very curved. A friend had an Italian version that had thin tines with a good curve but ended up breaking it opening a bottle of beer.
I love Monopole, but not for diam or similar corks. I’ve worked with a Durand and really like it, but I don’t see spending money on it given the number of excellent cork screws I have.
Until now, I’ve never had an issue with a waiter’s corkscrew and a Diam cork.
-Al
$1.87 at the 99 cent store.
The problem is the cork, not the removal device.
Something no one has mentioned yet is that even with a “good” Ah-So, the prongs are not the same length and do not go to the bottom of the cork. So sometimes you give it a little twist and you end up breaking the cork at the end of the short arm, and you pull out the cork only to see that you have a little disc of cork down in the neck of the bottle. Happens rarely, but it’s happened several times to me.
Also the Duran has the same problem that the Ah-So does, doesn’t it? In other words, when you put it in, you risk pushing the cork down into the bottle. I haven’t done that with the Durand, but I’ve done it once or twice with an Ah-So.
The second issue is that while I like a longer worm than most corkscrews have, and another one you can use if you’re trying Sarah’s method is from a Rabbit - most are intentionally made not to go all the way through the corks. Supposedly that can nick a piece of cork and then it would fall into the bottle and be poured into someone’s glass. That never made any sense at all to me, because it’s better to fish a piece of floating cork out of your glass than to struggle with a faulty closure that is only used because people are afraid of progress, but that’s what I’ve been told many times. And a waiter’s corkscrew has a short worm because most waiters aren’t opening old bottles. None of this may be true - it’s just what most people seem to tell me.
Question - has anyone used one of those pump devices, which are also pretty cheap? You insert a needle through the cork and pump air until the cork pops out? I’ve only used it on younger wines, just to play, but think it might be nice if you have a crumbly cork.
Yup. This has happened to me, too. I believe the idea behind the design, even if it doesn’t always work this way, is that both prongs are long enough to go to the bottom of the cork; it does take an exceptionally long cork for this to not happen.
Also the Duran has the same problem that the Ah-So does, doesn’t it? In other words, when you put it in, you risk pushing the cork down into the bottle. I haven’t done that with the Durand, but I’ve done it once or twice with an Ah-So. …
Yes and no. I find the worm on the Durand to be thinner, and sharper, than the worms on all other openers I’ve used. If one inserts the worm moreso with pressure towards the side of the bottle, as opposed to downward pressure, the risk of pushing the cork down into the bottle is greatly (albeit not entirely) decreased.
Those pump devices sometimes cause a bottle with a glass flaw to shatter.
Yep. And, if the cork is crumbly, I would expect it to get pushed into the bottle while attempting to get the needle through it.
This has never happened to me with the Durand because the corkscrew portion (which is long and does go through the bottom of the cork) is used to secure the cork in place first so that the pressure applied with the Ah So portion of the Durand (after the corkscrew is inserted) does not push the cork down into the bottle. The Ah So prongs of the Durand are also at least 1/4" (or slightly more) longer than any of the regular Ah So’s I have including the Monopol. That coupled with the thin head of the corkscrew and the indention on the corkscrew head into which the Ah So fits allow the Ah So to get deeper in the bottle. I am sure it is possible that the Durand will not work on incredibly compromised corks, but it simply has not happened to me yet – every time I have used it for older corks, it has always brought the entire cork up (including several times where the cork split into pieces when it was removed from the Durand post pull. It is an incredibly well designed device.