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Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v5n5 (02/02/2006) » Gewgaws and Gimcracks

Connoisseur Corkscrew

Connoisseur - Corkscrew - BarCraft -MSRP $30
(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Despite the label, this is not a corkscrew. This is a $30 cork management and disposal system. You barely have to think about having a bottle of wine, and it will have selected a vintage appropriate for your meal, opened it and poured it into a glass for you. Unlike your traditional corkscrews, the Connoisseur has a clamp that secures it to the neck of the wine bottle, and the screw is attached to a lever mechanism that twists it into the cork when you push it down. Pull the lever back up and it extracts the cork from the bottle. Getting the cork off the screw is easy, too: clamp the corkscrew around the cork, pull the lever up again and the screw twists out as easily as it went in. Once you get a Connoisseur corkscrew, your clumsiness will never again come between you and your hooch.

One evening my mom called me up, distraught. It seems a bottle of Johnson Estate Liebeströpfchen 2003 had broken her Good Grips corkscrew. The screw had separated from the handle and become irretrievably embedded within the cork. Being the good son that I am, I came over immediately and liberated both the cork and half the bottle of wine (which was very tasty). The corkscrew, unfortunately, could not be repaired. She keeps saying she’s going to write a nasty letter to OXO. It’s too bad she doesn’t read my column, or I’d remind her.

A couple of weeks later, she called me over again so she could demonstrate the Connoisseur, which she’d bought at a substantial discount at a garage sale. She opened up the velvet-lined gift box and explained how it finessed corks out of their bottles. “But for some reason,” she explained, “the manual says it doesn’t work with artificial corks,” presaging that evening’s events like a poorly written sitcom.

So we tried the thing on a $3 bottle of Bully Hill Swarthy Fisherman 2005, complete with a rubber cork (“Wine With Integrity,” says the fake cork). We figured that while it may not work right, it would at least do something. The Connoisseur did not let us down. The instant the corkscrew touched the bottle, two little springs shot out from inside the mechanism and one of the clamps fell off.

After about 45 minutes with some jeweler’s screwdrivers I was able to put the corkscrew back together, but not before deciding that I don’t like the idea of having a corkscrew that’s more snobbish than I am.

Pros: Opens wine bottles, walks the dog and helps old ladies cross the street.

Cons: When the Connoisseur disagrees with your selection, it can be a real jerk about it.

Dave is Artvoice’s all-purpose computer geek, and can be reached by emailing webmaster@artvoice.com. His new favorite wine is Arbor Mist Sparkling Peach Chardonnay, which at least comes with a screw top.