I’ve opened my fair share of wine bottles over the years, some new, some really old, some opened in haste, others opened with extreme care.  Finding a good corkscrew is not easy, and there’s a ton of debate over which ones are best.

I’m not going to tell you this one is the best, but I’ll tell you it’s my favorite.  And it works great with just one catch, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Let’s first talk about what a good wine opening device should do.  It should be easy to use.  It should have a “feel” to it so that you know you won’t break the cork (battery powered openers are out).  It should be effective at opening bottles all the time.  It’s a bonus if it’s cheap and a bonus if it’s light and small.

Those were my requirements.  For many years I used a Rabbit opener like this.  I liked it, and it worked well.  But when I was opening older wines from my cellar, I didn’t like how automated it was.  I lost the “feel” of the cork, and wasn’t sure when to apply pressure and when not to.  Granted, I still got those wines open, a few with broken corks, so it did the job.

I began searching for a new opener, something simple, back to the basics.  And that’s when I came across this opener, called the Wine Enthusiast Pulltap’s Double-Hinged Waiters Corkscrew.  It was $2 on Amazon.  Free shipping but not Prime eligible.

I ordered three of them, and it took weeks to arrive, so I figure these are coming from China.  But once I started using them, I was hooked.  They are as small as a corkscrew can get, tiny form factor.  The screw is sharp and digs into the corks nicely.  Once in, you have two hinges to work the cork out from.  It’s smooth, effortless and super fast for everyday bottles.  For your special, aged wines, you have incredible feel as to the give and take of the cork as it comes out.  And it has a small foil cutter.

Now, here’s the catch, and you can read this in the Amazon reviews which are spot on.  The screw will begin to bend if you’re not careful.  I haven’t had any of mine bend to a point of not being usable, but I’ve noticed they don’t line up with the handle as they did when they were new.

So, what do you do?  At $2 a piece, you buy a bunch of them.  I have five more on order, and keep them scattered throughout the house and basement.  They are great to travel with.  All in all, I find it hard to use anything else.

(and I was not provided free product or compensated for saying this in any way, just want to share a tip that might help your enjoyment of Costco wine, like it did for me.)

Let me know what you think if you try them.  And thanks for visiting the site.

— Andrew