Hmmm, guess I’m not in on the joke? My Rabbit is just a waiters key.
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That looks like the Coutale. Dunno if the Rabbit folks are making Coutale knockoffs now, but when most of us hear Rabbit, we think of this.
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My Chateau Laguiole I’ve had for 20 years is the standard by which I judge all others. The only imperfection is the lack of double-hinge. Every other detail is perfect. The feel in my hand is much better than any other. YHMV. I used it successfully extracting hundreds of problematic old corks long before learning the method the Durand was designed to replicate. It was easily superior to the first Durand model, with its too short worm.
this to me is a lot of it. not unlike a knife, or a proper glass, the weight and balance are key.
Oh yeah those are terrible.
Anyone tried the Peugeot? I’ve not, but it looks interesting - single step but hinged. I used to swear by their pepper mills though they seem to have slipped a bit.
A tangent, but Peugeot really are a fascinating company. Change direction and product specialties almost constantly and are always a little bit different.
I bought a Coutale knock-off from True Fabrications (maybe Coutale are already a knock-off?) from Amazon in 2020 for well under $20 and it is fantastic vs its peer pulltaps type double hinged screwpulls. Have put away my more expensive openers in a drawer somewhere and now only use this along with the very occasional Durand bottle.
Maybe my only niggle as it is with most pocket corkscrews is I feel the worm should be 6, not 5 turns long.
Looks identical to what has been shown above.
Not really the Glasvin of the corkscrew world.
Guess we should make a $50 corkscrew!
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Or how about a $30 one that should be $50, but still gives you excellent margins?!
That could work too
I was hoping you’d see this. I’d want to target that price point, maybe more. Modular design I think is a great feature (a la Code 38). Skip the fancy handle materials and just make it absolutely perfect fit and finish. Like a modern MB pro. Weighty, balanced, perfectly ergonomic.
The only concern from a business perspective seems to be that I never buy corkscrews, and the only time I need to buy it is when I need one immediately, so I find the closest cheapest thing. Curious how many corkscrews people on this forum have purchased in their lives.
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no one knew that they had to have Zalto before Zalto came on the scene. I’m of the very strong opinion that customers have no idea what they want, so don’t ask them. Make something amazing and they’ll buy it.
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In theory, we shouldn’t be buying so many wine glasses either - once you get 6 or 12 of the hot new glass that oughtta set you up for awhile - but then the next hot new glass comes along and we buy 'em anyway, etc. etc. So, sign me up for the hot new corkscrew.
My local wine bar gave me a wood handled Lisse during COVID that I really like. I believe they are around $10 but it works well.
Things I like in a waiters style corkscrew:
Long, curved foil cutter knife
Two step
Smooth finish
Long screw
Heavy enough to not feel like it’s going to break with a tight cork or DIAM
Yeah, would you charge a chainsaw murderer corkage?
I have a bunch. 2 kitchens, two other rooms where I open wines, in bottle tote bags for various tastings and dinners, and one in my backpack (which comes with me for winery and vineyard work).
Where my Laguiole beats almost everything out the is the long-ish worm with a very sharp tip. An extra 1/4" length would be better. It’s common enough the bottom part of a cork breaks off on someone, staying in place way down in the neck of a bottle. That happened a bit with the original Durand, and often enough here and there. (More likely if the worm doesn’t reach all the way down.) Having the length to reach and the sharpness to pierce through rather than push, you can get that last bit.
So many comments about weight. Maybe it’s my racing background, but that also seems ironic in a world that values these piece of shit $80 stems that feel cheap and imbalanced in relation to the weight of the wine in them, and break if you look at them funny.
Lightweight can feel cheap, or it can feel great. Don’t worry about preconceptions, as someone else noted. Also, note that there are some great looking pricey waiters corkscrews that are bulky and quite heavy. They work just fine on young wines and tough to extract corks. But, try using one on an older cork with issues to confront, and you’ll find them terribly clumsy and awkward.
I like slim. My Laguiole is dense, but seems to weigh half as much as some clumsy-fancy ones. I don’t think I’d want it any heavier, but I’d be fine if it was lighter with higher quality material as the reason.
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Maybe I’m just jaded because I’m in the trade but the everyday corkscrews work just fine for me in most cases. In any setting where I’m tasting older wines, somebody has a Durand.
My company logo openers are Pulltaps, and the one winery from which we have boxes of corkscrews is ‘Milano’ made in Italy. Sure you give up some design things for practicality, but they don’t often fail and if one does there are replacements behind it and I don’t really have to think about it.
The HiCoup on sale for $13 would be just fine for me.
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