The DURAND is the answer ...

[brodie_thomson]

@dcornutt

I have a dog in this fight since the designer of this is a good friend. So with that said, this is a unique device. It is craftsman quality. Lifetime kind of device.

I know someone who removes 100 year old corks with a Laguiole worm turned at an angle. He is the best. (Eric Reynaud) He doesn’t need this device. A retard like me however needs all the help he can get. If I am opening a 40 year old bottle with a crappy cork, I want all the help I can get. There are no homemade workarounds that are as elegant as this device. That doesn’t mean they can’t work. If I am opening a bottle that is worth, 5 to 10 times the price of this device, I see it as being a good investment. FWIW.

Don - Fully agree, I am an amateur (as we all are compared to Eric). I have also observed Eric in action and is as you correctly say he is the best. No one pulls old corks better than Eric (but he does get to do it an awful lot).

I think I will buy one based on this discussion!

Brodie

[Mike_During]

Brodie, I hope this means you have some aged wines we can drink together. I have a Durand, not the aged wine, to use when over here in a couple of weeks. Cheers Mike

[brodie_thomson]

@Mike During

Brodie, I hope this means you have some aged wines we can drink together. I have a Durand, not the aged wine, to use when over here in a couple of weeks. Cheers Mike

Mike - have some Vintage ports back to 1970 but do not have a lot of wine that predates the late 1980’s. Still by the time I drink so of these bottles they will be 30+ years and so be good Durand candidates…

Perhaps we can try it on a bottle of 1989 Drouhin Musigny I picked up at auction a few months ago!

Brodie

[Mike_During]

@brodie thomson

Perhaps we can try it on a bottle of 1989 Drouhin Musigny I picked up at auction a few months ago!
Brodie

The real stuff then. I may be able to find a younger of the same, non auction.

[brodie_thomson]

@Mike During

@brodie thomson

Perhaps we can try it on a bottle of 1989 Drouhin Musigny I picked up at auction a few months ago!
Brodie

The real stuff then. I may be able to find a younger of the same, non auction.

Mike - I am keen to see what the 89 Drouhin Musigny tastes like and figured you and Cathy were the right folks to open it with. No need to match with another Drouhin Musigny. Whatever you plan to open is always more than fine!

Brodie

[Jerry_Hey]

The Durand has worked on every bottle I have opened - corks in bottles back to '47 have all come out clean. Fine quality in the Durand, but my only complaint is that if the Ah-so tines could fit into the slits that you put them in when packing it up, it would make it much easier to twist when extracting the cork. Now when you have to grab the screw and the ah-so it gets a little awkward. The slits in the handle of the screw would have to be wider to make enough room to wiggle to ah-so into the side of the cork but then when all the way down it would assemble into more of a one piece unit to pull out. Not much of a gripe from me, but maybe that could be the Durand 1.2 version.

[alan_weinberg]

@Eric LeVine

I don’t actually think you understand the distinction between outside and inside. At least not the one I am making. And I can just say that I have opened hundreds of bottles with obvious TCA outside where there is absolutely none inside.

don’t you really mean the “top” and “bottom” of the cork?
alan

[Eric_LeVine]

@alan weinberg

@Eric LeVine

I don’t actually think you understand the distinction between outside and inside. At least not the one I am making. And I can just say that I have opened hundreds of bottles with obvious TCA outside where there is absolutely none inside.

don’t you really mean the “top” and “bottom” of the cork?
alan

Yes but please not this again… I just had a 90 Lynch Bages the other day where the TOP of the cork screamed of TCA. The BOTTOM and the wine were just fine though.

[k_s_h_i_n]

@Faryan Amir-Ghassem¡

glad that worked out for you Henry. It’s worked for me every time I’ve used it.

The improvised method is even better if you replace the corkscrew with a long worm screw you can extract out of one of these apparatus’ http://corkscrew.com/images-sales/zyliss_new.jpg providing better leverage and oftentimes a thiner/slenderer worm that doesn’t cause fragile corks to deteriorate.

Faryan,
I open my share of old wines and also apply your method although not often. The issue for me buying durand is that I am not sure the product quality warrants the price it commands. I can easy accomplish the same task with a screwpull and an ah so. Once again, a personal choice.

[Roy_Hersh]

I totally agree with Eric on this one and don’t understand Keith’s protestations. I too open lots of old (Port bottles) going back often from 1977-1927 many times a year and on occasion, significantly older than that. These are very long and durable corks but the top of the cork can have what Eric described as “raging TCA” which is not always apparent on other facia of the cork itself. Pushing it into the bottle will quickly contaminate the wine, as we are talking about parts per trillion here being rather powerful little buggers. Like Eric, I find this on the top of the cork (right below the capsule) while often times not detecting this anywhere else on the cork itself. The vast majority of the Vintage Port corks I open, the wine has not seeped through to the top to then contaminate the wine, which is at least for the types of bottles I open (with some Bdx and Burgs too) all the more reason why the Durand works when other cork extraction methods fail. That being said, I don’t think the type of wine-cork makes a difference. Any old, long cork will present the same risks, so I don’t want to get caught up on this being a Port thing.

[Roger_Nellans]

@Loren Sonkin

So, do thoseof you who use this go to it automatically for a wine of a certain age? Do you use it when you run into trouble? If so, can the worm fit in after removing the screw that did not work? Or just as a sub for an ah-so because it is safer? Thanks.

I just picked one up at La Paulee… it works well, but not sure that it is all that much better than the Ah So, if your technique is correct in using that device…it seems as if you can use as a rescue…providing you didn’t damage the cork in the first attempt.

[Roy_Hersh]

Roger,

The difference is when you come up against the ancient crumbling cork, that’s where the Durand is unbeatable.

[Roger_Nellans]

@Roy Hersh

Roger,

The difference is when you come up against the ancient crumbling cork, that’s where the Durand is unbeatable.

Well, I don’t disagree, but I’ve been using an Ah So on old port and bordeaux for 30 years and rarely have a problem. As mentioned…technique, technique, technique. I did purchase the Durand when sitting with Don Cornutt at the Zachy auction. After hearing the story on its development from Don and liking techy things, thought I should have it. Good to have it in the arsenal.

[Roy_Hersh]

I used a Monopole Ah So for decades, but greatly prefer the Durand when I have ancient Port corks, especially oldies pre-1963 and would never use anything else on bottles from 1927 and older.

[SteveC]

My wife recently bought me one. I used it the other night at the NY Beserkers offline with Carg. Pulled corks from an '89 Marcel Diess Altenbourg Gewurtztraminer SGN and an '86 Jadot Clos de Beze. Worked like a charm on both corks, removing them intact. My only issue is that I need to be better at getting the worm in the middle of the cork.