It's been a long day. After you've put on your soft pants and said "honey, I'm home" to that bottle of Pinot Grischilling in the fridge, the last thing you want is a wrestling match with a corkscrew. Which is why, more than luxe finishes, high design flourishes, or ergonomic bells and whistles, the single most important factor to consider when selecting a wine opener isreliability. Basically, good corkscrews should like be the undergarments of your bar cabinet: attractive, well-built, and so comfortable that you don't really notice them.
But with so many different kinds of contraptions to choose from—anthropomorphic!Automatic-electric!Trimmed in marble!—where do you begin? Relax. Determined to find the best wine opener on the market, we took 10 well-reviewed models home for testing and did the heavy lifting for you. Read on for our two favorites, and for the specifics of how we tested, scroll to the bottom of the page.
Our Favorite Wine Opener:Pulltap's Classic Evolution by Pulltex
When it comes towine openers, as with so much else, simple is better. Though we tested a variety of styles, including two-armed lever corkscrews and large, single crank "rabbit"-type openers, time and again it was the most basic waiter-style wine keys that we liked the most—and of that category, thePulltap Classic Evolution Chrome corkscrewwas the best.
What's so appealing about these utilitarian workhorses? Well, as a group, they tend to be very slim and, at about 5 inches in length, small enough to easily stash in any pocket, glovebox, or cluttered kitchen drawer. They're also relatively inexpensive—bargain versions can be had for just a few bucks, and even the solid metal ones toward the higher end of the spectrum (like our favorite, the chrome Pulltex) top out at less than $40. (Compare that to a starting price of around $20 for the more elaborate screwpull and lever-style openers.)
Though neophytes might be intimidated by the minimalistic double-hinged design that eases the corkscrew into the bottle and levers it up in two movements, it only takes one or two passes to master the technique. And, unlike the two-armed twist and crank models we tried, we never had an issue with cork breakage or mangling. I suspect that's because waiter-style wine keys give the person doing the opening a lot more control—without a lot of bulk between you and the bottle, you can really feel what's going on and adjust your pressure and angles accordingly.
Ultimately, the Pulltap's Classic Evolution won our hearts by doing all of the above with just a little extra smoothness, sturdiness, and style. Its curved chrome body is weighty in the palm without being cumbersome and is subtly but cleverly shaped to cradle the fingers for maximum comfort and leverage. A small serrated blade flips out smoothly from the head of the opener and slices through foil handily. The teflon-coated "worm" (the technical name for the corkscrew itself) feels solidly built and enters and exits corks with zero friction or hiccuping. And all the joints and hinges open and close with a strong, satisfyingthwump. All in all, it's a wine opener that feels like it would last a lifetime—and we'd happily use it that long.
That said, aside from some differences in build quality and a few aesthetic upgrades, most waiter-style corkscrews function quite similarly—and we thought lots of the others we tested (including the morebasic, non-chrome version of the Pulltex) were pretty solid, too. If the chrome Pulltex costs more than you're looking to spend or is hard to track down (there are some concerns about knockoffs being peddled on Amazon; we recommend reading the comments and looking for models that have the words Original Pulltex stamped into the metal), there are plenty of other serviceable options to choose from among our contenders, including theOXO Steel Waiter's Corkscrew, theRabbit Two-Step Waiter's Corkscrew, and theHiCoup Waiter's Corkscrew. And if you're looking for something with a little flair, theAlessi Parrot Sommelier Corkscrewis pretty darn fun.
BUY IT:Pulltap's Waiter's Corkscrew by Pulltex, $36 from iwawine.com
BUY IT:Pulltap's Waiter's Corkscrew by Pulltex, $30 from Amazon(Editor's note: The Amazon seller's comments suggest that this is genuine.)
An Easy-to-Use, Budget Option:True Twister Easy Turn Corkscrew
If you have strength issues with your hands or problems gripping—or if a fully manual corkscrew just requires too much work—the True Twister Easy Turn Corkscrew is effortless to use, less than $10, and has hundreds of five-star reviews on Amazon. The basic design works like this: you insert the wine opener over the neck of the bottle and turn the chrome handle so that the worm drives into the cork. Then, you just keep turning, and—voila!—the cork comes up and out, no pulling required. That's it!
If size is a consideration, keep in mind that the True Twister a bit larger than the Pulltex and other waiters' corkscrews. However, it's far smaller than most other assisted openers, including the "rabbit"-style models, and will still tuck easily into most drawers. With its molded plastic body, the construction isn't the sturdiest. That said, its chrome twist handle is smooth, weighty, well-balanced, and easy to grip—and for the price, this wine opener is a great deal.
BUY IT:True Twister Easy Turn Corkscrew, $9 on Amazon
How We Tested
There's not much to say here: we tested all of the wine openers by opening wine. The bottles we used were from a mixed case of inexpensive andmoderately priced winessealed with both natural and synthetic corks, purchased at a small town liquor store in Massachusetts. To assemble our lineup of wine openers for testing, we consulted Amazon customer reviews and considered the corkscrews recommended byBon Appetit,Cooks Illustrated,Food & Wine,The Kitchn, andThe Wirecutter.
We whittled down the types of corkscrews to test into four categories: waiter-style, which are simple but require some effort on the part of the user; winged, which involve twisting the corkscrew down and using the two "arms" of the wine opener to lever the cork up; larger "rabbit" or lever-style corkscrews which consist of two long handles that you brace around the mouth of the bottle and a single lever that you use to drive the screw into the cork; and "twist" wine openers that, as their name implies, sit on the mouth of the bottle and have a single handle that you turn to drive the corkscrew into the cork and keep twisting until the cork reverses direction and comes back out.
We decided to leave electric wine openers out of the running since they take up quite a bit of space, require charging, and are not as portable or convenient as the other styles.
Factors We Evaluated
Was the operation of the wine opener intuitive? Was there anything about it that felt awkward or confusing?
How did the opener feel in our hand? Was it comfortable? Did the materials feel sturdy enough to stand up to longterm use?
开了刀迅速而平稳地工作,没有damaging the cork (or our arms!) in the process?
Other Wine Openers We Tested
We tested two "rabbit"-style lever openers: theOXO Steel Vertical Lever Corkscrew ($40)and theRabbit Original Corkscrew ($43). Both functioned reasonably well, but as everyday tools, we didn't think their benefits outweighed their bulkier size and price. TheLe Creuset Activ-Ball Metal Corkscrewis a very nice, extremely solidly built opener that operates according to the exact same design as the True Twister Easy Turn. But at $50, it's also about five times the cost—and it doesn't do the job five times better. Finally, though the two-arm style of theWing Corkscrew Opener by HiCoup ($13)is closest to the type of wine opener we grew up with, any points we were ready to award it for nostalgia were subtracted once it came down to real world testing. Compared to the other models we tried, the wing design felt awkward to operate and resulted in more cork damage.
The Takeaway
Waiter-style wine openers are ubiquitous because they are small, comfortable, and consistently get the job done. With its solid chrome body, teflon worm, and sturdy, smooth construction,Pulltap's Classic Evolutionis the gold standard of the bunch. Whether you're a Chianti-and-pizza type of wine consumer or a sommelier in training, you'll always to be glad to have this one in your back pocket. But if hand strength or flexibility are issues for you—or heck, you just want a little help—theTrue Twister Easy Turncorkscrew is an intuitive and easy to use opener at an inexpensive price.
All products featured on Epicurious are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
