Sommelier André Hueston Mack is back for another episode of World of Wine, this time testing 13 gadgets designed to make opening a bottle of wine at home much easier.
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00:00Two, and then like that.
00:02That, I wasn't expecting.
00:04I thought you were like gonna be pumping and pumping.
00:06Damn, I'm embarrassed, that was really cool.
00:08I'm dumbfounded, guys, I don't know what to say.
00:11Hey, I'm sommelier Andre Houston Mack,
00:13and today I'm gonna be reviewing
00:14every different type of wine bottle opener.
00:16There's tons of tools and methods to remove the cork,
00:19some of them simple, some of them very complex.
00:21And today we're gonna see which ones are worth your money.
00:24So this is a wine bottle opener.
00:30This is the Butler's Friend.
00:31This is also known as an Aso.
00:33It's called the Butler's Friend
00:34because the butler could actually open the bottle of wine
00:36without the owner knowing
00:37and take us a couple of sips for himself.
00:39It does leave the cork intact
00:41and it doesn't put a hole through the center.
00:43You have these two prongs here,
00:44little Wolverine action.
00:47It doesn't have a traditional foil cutter,
00:48but if you use it for a while,
00:50you can use the point of this
00:50to kind of serrate and cut the top off.
00:53So you see it's one side that's longer,
00:54this one's a little bit shorter.
00:56And if you look in here,
00:56you can kind of see like the rocker mechanism in there.
00:59Start with the longest side
01:00and you kind of just wanna wedge it
01:01in between one side of the cork.
01:03And then you put the shorter side in.
01:05And then basically you have it in
01:07and now you're just gonna rock back and forth like this.
01:09It takes a little bit of effort,
01:10but once you get it down, it's pretty easy.
01:12So now it's flush with the cork
01:13and now you just wanna twist and turn,
01:15twist and turn, twist and turn, and voila.
01:19It does damage the cork a little bit here,
01:20but you're still getting the cork out.
01:22It's probably the same amount of force
01:23that you would use on the traditional waiter's corkscrew
01:26where you have the lever.
01:27I love this tool.
01:28When I worked at fancy restaurants,
01:29we always had one in the sommelier station.
01:31And if you're into wine, it's kind of geeky.
01:34You collect gear.
01:35You always wanna have one of these in your gear box.
01:37This is always fun and interesting
01:38and actually opens a bottle of wine.
01:40My wife used to carry this in her thigh-high boots at work.
01:44This is called a travel corkscrew.
01:46I can understand why.
01:47You just kind of pull right out.
01:48You see something that looks familiar.
01:50That's the helix that you find on a traditional corkscrew.
01:52And then you have this hole here
01:54and then you put the plastic between here
01:56and then it kind of works like this.
01:59I actually hate these things.
02:00A lot of times the helix isn't long enough.
02:02It's pretty flimsy, so it's gonna bend.
02:05And then these kind of crack sometimes.
02:07But because it doesn't have a knife on it,
02:09it is TSA approved so you can move freely
02:11within the airport and through security.
02:13Hence now the name travel corkscrew makes a lot of sense.
02:16So now we have our bottle of wine.
02:17There's no foil cutter here.
02:19So generally you can just pull these things off.
02:22So we have helix and we're just gonna go
02:27a little bit off center and twist.
02:31We have it in.
02:33And then now we just want to pull.
02:37I'm gonna break this thing.
02:39I might have to put it between my legs.
02:41All right, so it's slowly coming out.
02:42Slowly, slowly, slowly.
02:43And now that does take a little bit of elbow grease.
02:47It could be cumbersome for sure.
02:49You're doing this, you could hit yourself in the face.
02:51That doesn't feel too good.
02:53Sometimes there is a lot of spillage.
02:54I would say the spillage level on this
02:56is probably eight out of 10.
02:57It just does take a little bit of force.
02:59Kind of not my favorite, but in a pinch it'll work.
03:02So this looks very familiar.
03:04This is generally called a waiter's corkscrew.
03:06This is the most synonymous with
03:08when you're talking about a bottle of wine.
03:10What makes these a little special
03:11is because they have a hinge system here.
03:14So it just allows you to kind of choke up on it,
03:16if you will, to make it a little bit easier.
03:18So open the initial pop.
03:19This is called the lever right here.
03:22It's a foil cutter.
03:23Here is what you call the helix,
03:25or people call it the worm.
03:26And this is the handle.
03:28So we're going to pull out the foil cutter
03:29the way I would do it at a restaurant.
03:31You want to cut underneath the second lip.
03:33Traditionally, capsules were made of lead.
03:36So you didn't want any of the wine
03:37to come in contact with lead.
03:38So that's why you cut underneath the second lip.
03:41You make the first cut around the front,
03:43one around the back, and then one on the side,
03:46and the foil should just come off very easily.
03:49So we'll open it up.
03:51This is a great size helix.
03:52As you can see, you have enough
03:53to actually fit through the cork.
03:55And also, it's Teflon coated,
03:56so it goes through the corkscrew a little easier.
03:58I'm right-handed.
03:59I generally do it like this.
04:00So my right index finger,
04:02you can see at the tip, is the tip of the helix.
04:04And then we just want to apply it a little bit off-center,
04:07and then press in, and then turn.
04:08So now we're just turning the helix here.
04:10What makes it special is that there are two hinges here.
04:12You want to screw it into the first one here.
04:14I apply pressure with my thumb,
04:16and then I just pull here.
04:18So that's the first one.
04:19And then you kind of jack it like a car jack,
04:21move it up to the second one, and then pull up,
04:23and then you can just twist and pull out.
04:26So very easy, very simple.
04:27This is the tool of choice.
04:29Fun, interesting, easy to use.
04:31One of the best out there.
04:33This is very similar in style of a waiter's corkscrew,
04:37but as humans, we need options.
04:38You have a car, gets you from point A to point B.
04:42It could be a Hyundai, or it could be a Ferrari.
04:44And so this is a specialty wine key
04:45that was designed by moi and Craig Hill.
04:49And this is called the best wine key.
04:50If you're not trying to be the best, then what's the point?
04:52What most of you probably haven't seen is this thing here.
04:55And so it's a ratchet system.
04:57You want to have a ratchet system or a longer hinge here
05:02so you can open up older bottles.
05:03A lot of old Bordeaux bottles have longer corks.
05:06And so the older they are, they become fragile.
05:08All right, so now we'll go ahead and open up.
05:10And we have like a little catch lever.
05:12See, it just kind of swings here,
05:13but you just lock it in place here so it doesn't swing.
05:16Go ahead and remove our helix.
05:17Go right in, a little off-center.
05:19You go off-center, then it actually makes it center.
05:21If you go in the middle, then it'll be offset
05:23just because of how the worm works.
05:25All right, so then we'll go ahead
05:26and go to the first lever here.
05:30So it just really kind of just works like a crank.
05:32And then, voila, we're out.
05:34It just makes it much easier to open a bottle of wine,
05:37really using no force at all.
05:39And then when you get to those older bottles,
05:41it makes it pretty much a cinch.
05:43A lot of sommeliers, you treat your wine opener
05:45as your lightsaber.
05:47To be able to design your own, I think, is very special.
05:49I'm honored to be able to do it.
05:52It's what it's all about, making a difference.
05:55Oh, yeah.
05:57One of the most coveted tools in the wine industry
05:59by professionals, a game-changer,
06:01ever since it came on the scene in 2007.
06:04This is called a Duran.
06:05It's basically merging old with new.
06:08So this is the helix,
06:10which you know from a waiter's corkscrew.
06:13And what you're left with here is an asso.
06:16Old and rare bottles of wine,
06:17generally, you know, you're opening things
06:19from the 40s, the 50s, the 10s.
06:22A lot of those corks are crumbly, they're old.
06:25They've been stuck in that bottle for many years.
06:27When you go in, they can start to crumble
06:29or they're wet and soggy, so they'll fall apart.
06:32One surefire way to eliminate, you know,
06:3595% of that was this thing here called a Duran.
06:39We pull them apart, we have our two pieces.
06:41We're gonna start with our helix,
06:42all centered, and we're in.
06:45So we wanna screw down pretty flush.
06:47So we have it here.
06:48Now what we wanna do is we wanna use our asso,
06:50so we know to use the longer side first,
06:53and we're just gonna go opposite of the helix handles here.
06:56So we'll go in here,
06:57and so now we just wanna rock back and forth.
07:00And now the asso part is in contact with the helix part,
07:04and then now you have their little twist handles here.
07:06And so now you just kinda twist and turn and pull,
07:11and everything's intact and out.
07:13I would say this is probably more
07:15for your professional or your collector.
07:16It's expensive, but in comparison to opening up
07:19priceless bottles of wine for $60,000, $40,000,
07:22it's a drop in the bucket.
07:23In all my restaurants, we have these for the staff to use.
07:26I think it's great.
07:27We are moving on to what I like to call
07:29the Sky Mall section of wine openers.
07:34This is called a winged corkscrew.
07:35Fly, pelican, fly, fly.
07:38This is the kind of one that you find
07:40at your grandma's house or Airbnb, if they even have one.
07:45A lot of times, these are poorly made.
07:46The gears are always stripped,
07:48and I think that's kinda where it goes wrong.
07:50But in a pinch, these work, and you see here,
07:52this part that looks like the face,
07:53it's a bottle opener as well here.
07:55So we'll just go ahead and place this part over the bottle,
07:57and then we'll just start to twist.
07:58Fairly easy.
07:59The wings are arising.
08:01That looks about right, and we're extracting.
08:05So this is where it gets tricky.
08:06It's out.
08:07Sometimes it's not out enough that you can just pull it out.
08:10And now you gotta rock it a little bit to pull it out,
08:12but voila.
08:14This particular type of gear system feels much easier
08:17and, I guess, more comfortable for a lot of people.
08:19You're actually using the table and the solid foundation
08:22as a way to extract the cork, right?
08:24In a pinch, it will work.
08:26Will you find one of these at my house?
08:27Probably not.
08:28If you're gonna have one of these,
08:29I would say at least buy one of quality.
08:31So spend maybe a few extra bucks.
08:33Make sure that it's metal.
08:35You can't go wrong.
08:36It works.
08:38It works.
08:40Moving right along, we have the Rabbit Lever Corkscrew.
08:43Wow, this thing looks like something out of the future.
08:45But I do see a helix, so I'm familiar with that.
08:48Here's a little gear system here.
08:50I've used these on many big events.
08:53You're opening over 100 bottles of wine,
08:55and maybe it's just you or two other people.
08:57The motion that you're doing is a lot easier.
08:59It's a quicker way to be able to get through them.
09:01So I don't discount it in any way.
09:03Now, if you came to my house for dinner
09:05and we were opening three or four bottles,
09:08I wouldn't pull this out.
09:09It also comes with this in the packaging.
09:11This is a foil cutter.
09:12Place it right on top of the bottle.
09:14And so you're basically just squeezing
09:15and twisting and turning, and then the cap comes out.
09:18I'm gonna start in this position.
09:20You're gonna place on the bottle here.
09:22I'm gripping, so it's applied pressure here.
09:24And now we're gonna take this lever here and pull forward.
09:28And now we're gonna pull this way.
09:30And like magic, it is out.
09:32Very quick, maybe three seconds.
09:34Not a lot of effort.
09:35If you wanna remove the cork, there it is.
09:38As you're older, if you have arthritis,
09:39you have grip issues or any type of disabilities,
09:42I think this is probably the go-to tool.
09:44It's a fun tool.
09:45I can see how people gravitate to it.
09:46It's actually really cool, to be honest with you.
09:50So next up, this is the Tizene Air Pump Bottle Opener.
09:54There's a needle here.
09:55So this will push air into the bottle.
09:57So the pressure from the air being placed in the bottle
09:59will push and lift the cork out.
10:01Got it in theory here.
10:03I've never used any device like that
10:05that you have to pump the air into,
10:06but I'm eager to give it a go.
10:08To be honest with you, I've never seen anything like this.
10:12I'm not real sure the need for it.
10:14What does the box say?
10:15Does the box say, does it say anything on like
10:18why you would need to use this?
10:20Let's check it out.
10:21I think we need some wine here.
10:23So air pump.
10:25We're gonna push it through the cork.
10:28It's gonna penetrate the cork there.
10:29And fairly easy.
10:31And now we pump air into it.
10:34It's so funny, I understand the premise.
10:37It definitely works, right?
10:38Yep, look at that.
10:38I thought it was more work.
10:40It's not more work.
10:41That's like two and then like that,
10:43and it'll come right out.
10:45That I wasn't expecting.
10:48I thought you were like gonna be pumping and pumping.
10:49It's not, it's like two pumps,
10:52two and a half pumps, three, and it's done.
10:54And now it all makes sense to me
10:55because if you're thinking about the fill level is here.
10:58So the amount of air that you're actually pumping into here
11:02is maybe about a half an inch,
11:05maybe an inch.
11:07All right, I stand corrected.
11:08I'm an honest man here.
11:10Like that's kind of cool.
11:11Damn, I'm embarrassed.
11:13That's really cool.
11:14I don't even know how to remove the cork.
11:16Oh, man, these guys are smart.
11:21Okay, so this piece here,
11:23you just hold here and you pull the piece here
11:26and the cork comes out.
11:29That was easier than all of the tools that we did today.
11:33All of them.
11:34If we're talking about disabilities
11:35or not having grip issues or all the right,
11:37I mean, I'm dumbfounded guys.
11:39I don't know what to say.
11:41What would it take for you to use this
11:43in your everyday life?
11:44Just not telling anybody.
11:45Yeah.
11:49Okay, so here we have
11:51the automatic pressurized bottle opener.
11:54And this is called Cork Pops.
11:55So you can see the needle here.
11:58Ah, you know what?
11:59Now this works is kind of in reference to the,
12:02it was the hand pump version that we were using earlier.
12:05This is the automatic pressurized.
12:07So they're using some type of gas.
12:09So you take your gas cartridge
12:10and you would insert it in here
12:12and it kind of locks just a little bit.
12:13So this little cartridge here opens 60 bottles.
12:16Also what I just noticed on this thing,
12:18cause I never read the instructions,
12:20this bottom part is a foil cutter.
12:22So we're going to apply it on the top here
12:23and we're going to squeeze and cut and foil is off.
12:28Off.
12:29All right, now we're going to insert.
12:32It's in.
12:34And now we're going to press the button.
12:37There you go.
12:38That is the quickest.
12:39But I have to tell you,
12:40there's something about it that's different to me.
12:42You can see that there was gas
12:44and that there was some spritz in the wine.
12:47Are we splitting hairs here or anything like that?
12:49Like I would say is like,
12:50that just feels a little too aggressive.
12:52I'm sure people are going to look at this and be like,
12:54it doesn't make a difference.
12:55People are particular about their wine, right?
12:57They don't want to alter it in any way, right?
13:00You know, it's art, right?
13:01So they want to drink it in the way that the winemaker,
13:05slash, you know, the artist intended it.
13:07So some people are weird about that.
13:10People would be apprehensive about this,
13:11using this on an expensive bottle of wine.
13:14It's pretty fast,
13:15but I'm not real sure if speed is of the essence
13:20in a casual setting at home, right?
13:22Like you can wait another 10 seconds
13:26and have it open maybe, you know?
13:28It's not the Olympics, right?
13:29You're not running a race.
13:32Today just keeps getting stranger and stranger.
13:35I've never seen this thing before.
13:36This is called the champagne lever.
13:38I guess it's a tool to open a bottle of champagne.
13:41It's bottled under pressure.
13:43And so the cork is live, some risk involved in opening it.
13:46And I think people get anxious behind that.
13:48Using these two puppies right here has always kind of worked,
13:51but I'm interested to dig a little deeper here
13:54and maybe be enlightened.
13:55So we have our sparkling wine here.
13:57You always want to be careful opening a bottle of champagne.
13:59Make sure that you always keep your thumb
14:01on top of the cork.
14:02Hold onto the bottle, six half turns, and then it'll open.
14:05And you want to kind of loosen the cage a little bit.
14:06And this is where it comes tricky
14:07because it'll always tell you,
14:08at this point you can't take your thumb off.
14:10But with this particular device, you have to remove the cage.
14:13And you just want to be careful, right?
14:14Like pointing this around and in direction, talking,
14:17lollygagging, this is like a loaded weapon.
14:19You're going to place this between the glass and the cork
14:21on either side, like this is this little groove here, right?
14:24So now we squeeze and now we have a grip on the cork
14:26and now we would pull this lever here.
14:28I just never know.
14:29See, maybe I'm a boomer.
14:30Maybe I'm stuck in my ways.
14:32That was pretty simple, felt safe.
14:34And there are some champagne and sparkling wine tops
14:36that are very hard to extract.
14:38That was kind of cool.
14:40Next up is called a champagne opener.
14:43Now, I've never seen one of these.
14:46I don't even know how it works.
14:47I had to watch a YouTube video on how to do it.
14:49It seems interesting that you're going to use this
14:52to open a bottle of sparkling wine safely.
14:54You don't even have to unscrew the cage.
14:56We don't even have to remove the foil.
14:59So you can just look here on the side
15:00and you can see where it's braided and twisted
15:01and you can see the loop here.
15:02You basically just hook this hook here inside of this loop
15:06and grab a hold, turn it over like this,
15:09put it on the top like that, squeeze down and pull up.
15:16I don't think I did that right.
15:18One, it popped, looks kind of messy and weird,
15:21but it looked like it totally exploded through the top here
15:24which could go any,
15:25I don't know what kind of look you're looking for,
15:26but it could be fun.
15:28But I would remove the foil.
15:29Some people don't have the strength or full range of motion.
15:32You're on the table.
15:32You can use the table to brace.
15:34Like you say, you don't know you need it
15:35until somebody makes it, right?
15:37And now you're like, well, maybe I need that,
15:39but I don't think I need it.
15:41So next up, we have the Peugeot reverse,
15:44fully automatic rechargeable corkscrew.
15:48Wow, that was a mouthful.
15:50It actually kind of looks like a pepper grinder, right?
15:52It doesn't have any visible, movable parts.
15:54It doesn't require different motions
15:56and all those types of things.
15:57So I can see the simplicity of it
15:59and why people would enjoy it.
16:01You can automate anything in your life
16:02that's supposed to make your life better.
16:04So let's go ahead and place this on top of the bottle
16:07and press down.
16:10One, 1,000, two, 1,000.
16:15Not yet.
16:18Voila.
16:19Like magic.
16:21Now I'm going to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
16:29All right, that's cool.
16:30But that takes a lot longer.
16:33You know, there's something about that, right?
16:35Is it for me? No.
16:36Could it be for you?
16:38Of course, if that's what floats your boat.
16:39But it is simple.
16:40It is easy.
16:41Extracts the cork
16:42and actually basically spits it right back out.
16:46So this contraption here,
16:48I've been told that this is a pat-nat opener.
16:50It's a form of sparkling wine.
16:52Generally comes in a crown top.
16:53I've never seen this before in my life, ever.
16:56So I'm curious.
16:57Pat-nat at a restaurant,
16:58you would just use a bottle opener, right?
17:01It has a crown top, like a Mexican Coke, right?
17:04You know, like a crown top.
17:05And you use the bottle opener and open it.
17:07Pat-nat is not really meant to age.
17:09This bottle had a different atmosphere per pressure.
17:12They don't need a heavy-duty cork in it
17:14or with a cage or anything like that.
17:15So a crown top will suffice.
17:17So this is a concrete container.
17:19You know, so this is like a wine chiller.
17:21It has a water-resistant LED light
17:23and it fits flush down in the bottom here.
17:26So it'll illuminate the bottle
17:28so you can watch the bubbles dance.
17:30It's kind of like part wine chiller, part hipster lava lamp.
17:33And then you slide the top on here.
17:35And this is the part that I thought was pretty interesting.
17:37Before you decide to enjoy your pat-nat,
17:39what you want to do is kind of release some of the gases.
17:42These are meant to sometimes re-firm into the bottle.
17:45So they have the active yeast in it.
17:46So when you open it, it will fizz.
17:48We shot one episode.
17:49We did a pat-nat from Vermont.
17:50Exploded everywhere.
17:51Everybody got wet.
17:54What you want to do is kind of release some of the gases.
17:56You use this screw top here to pierce the crown top.
17:59Once you start to do that,
18:00you should hear some gases pop out of there.
18:03Kind of relieving the pressure.
18:04Very slowly.
18:06Then it kind of conveniently slides off this way.
18:08The bottle opener just attaches to the side here of the base.
18:12So you have your opener and then you would just open.
18:16Interesting.
18:16In my opinion, it's doing too much.
18:18It feels like it adds a little bit of pretense
18:20to something that's supposed to be somewhat pedestrian
18:23and wine for all.
18:24But I get it.
18:25Does it solve a problem?
18:27It kind of does, right?
18:28It slowly lets off a lot of the gas
18:30so you can keep most of the bubbles.
18:31Can you do it in an easier way?
18:33Sure.
18:34But this looks beautiful.
18:37These are all tools made to get what's inside of the bottle
18:39out into your glass and to make your life better.
18:42They all do the same thing.
18:43It just gives me and you a variety.
18:45Buy what you like and have fun, most importantly.
18:49My mother-in-law's sitting on the sofa
18:50and she's talking about her cousin.
18:52She goes, oh yeah, Owen said he watched your new video
18:54and you're talking about a wine smelling like my wet dog.
18:59And it was at that moment that I realized
19:01I probably should not talk about my family here.