March 1, 2015 – My most important wine tools

There are a number of accessories one can accumulate that facilitate the regular enjoyment of good wines.  The number one item to have is a good, hand-operated cork screw.  Along these lines, I would recommend the basic, two-stage cork pull with either a hinge midway down the prop for the bottle lip, or a two piece solution where one slides out of the way for the other.  The fancy “rabbit” cork pull is fun to entertain with and works remarkably well on new corks, but it comes up short (quite literally) when pulling out old corks, often snapping the old cork in two (or more) pieces and leaving the bottle hopelessly plugged.  The number two item that I recommend is a decanter (and a little patience) to let the air soften the wine before serving.

From left: hinged cork screw, Ah So cork pull, and wine screen

When it comes to serving older wines, I have a different set of tools.  To ensure the complete, secure removal of the cork, I prefer the Ah So cork puller, with its two parallel slats that you wedge between the cork and the side of the bottle.  Once fully inserted, you twist the cork, loosening it, before attempting to list it out of the bottle.  Often an older cork will lock in place as crystals and sediment form against its interior surface.  Twisting the cork breaks this lock.  The next most important tool is a fine screen for filtering the wine.  Sediment accumulates in older wines and is unsightly and unpleasant on the palette.  These fine screens are ideally suited to capture nearly all of the sediment in any bottle and rinse clean easily.  Often, in restaurants, the last ounce or two of wine is not poured from an older wine to avoid transferring sediment into the glass, and the screen is a way to enjoy every last drop of your wine.