The Right Way to Open Wine Bottles

02 Sep The Right Way to Open Wine Bottles

If you are a wine lover and tend to consume and serve a lot of wine, it’s likely that you don’t need any practice with opening up a wine bottle – but the question here is- are you actually doing it the right way? There is a right way to open wine bottles, and here are the steps to how it’s to be done:

Steps to open wine bottles the right way

The right tools

You will find that there are a number of wine openers available on the market (and some of them are quite fancy too). But you can open up a wine bottle just as easily with a standard “waiter’s corkscrew” which is also referred to as a “sommelier’s friend”. It’s a small piece and doesn’t cost more than a few dollars.

Remove the Foil

You have to just flip the small knife on it and then hold the corkscrew firmly in the fist of one hand; ensure that the blade is pointing towards the thumb. Now hold the wine bottle very firmly in your other hand and then place the blade just below the bottle’s lip.

Now, squeeze the bottle’s neck between your thumb and knife and then rotate the bottle. Once you have passed this around a couple of times, you will notice that the foil has been cut very cleanly along the circumference. Use the knife in a scraping motion and then peel the foil away and upwards from the bottle and remove it with your hands.

Insert the Corkscrew

Now you just have to close the knife and then flip the corkscrew out. Hold the wine bottle very firmly in one hand & then use the other and insert the corkscrew right into the cork’s center. Even as you turn the corkscrew, apply a very gentle downward pressure; this will help get it to moving downward into the bottle’s cork and into the right position.

Just continue twisting it downward until the point that you can’t turn the corkscrew any longer. Don’t try to force the corkscrew in too much as that will only push some residue into the wine.

Remove the Cork

Carefully set the 1st step of the corkscrew on the bottle’s lip. Continue to hold the bottle very firmly in one hand and then apply upward pressure to lever the cork up. It’s considered bad manners if you put the bottle down on the table and do this.

Once you have removed the cork sufficiently upwards, move back to the 2nd step of the corkscrew. When you use both the steps, it lessens the chances of the cork bending & breaking. Once the cork has been leveraged as far out as possible; you just have to pull it, to remove the rest of it.

Removing the Cork from the Corkscrew

Take care not to poke yourself while you quickly twist the cork from the corkscrew, when you remove it with your hand. Inspect the cork for any kind of damage and this includes cracks, mold or any other kind of deterioration. If there is no indication that something might have gone wrong with your wine, you can then pour it into a glass.

Just as it’s important to know how to open a wine bottle, it’s crucial that you store it in the appropriate conditions. We at Signature Cellars are the custom wine cellar experts that know what it takes to provide excellent wine cellar solutions. For any consultation on design and install of wine cellars and information about cellaring wine, call Signature Cellars at 02 9340 7515. Alternatively, simply use this contact form to connect with us and we will get back to you shortly.

Thanks for reading,
Neil Smallman
Signature Cellars
1300 570 636