Power-Drill-Corkscrew-for-Wine-Decoded-by-Paul-Kaan-Hero

Opening a Bottle of Wine Tip 1: “Use a Power Drill, It’s Just Easier”


A great mate of mine, Adrian, also a winemaker, visited a couple of months back. As is the norm when a couple of ex-winemakers get together, the Filthy Good Vino comes out of the cellar.

On this occasion we failed to deliver on one of the basics … we could not get the first bottle, let alone the sixth open. It’s not like we were not qualified with 30 years of winemaking between us and we certainly were not drunk … yet.  We tried every corkscrew I possess. Somehow we managed to break a waiters friend, we even tried two at once!

So, if all else fails, I say, get industrial and pull out your Power Drill. That did the trick, although we did have to strain the wine through a fine sieve afterwards ? Ironically the wine was knackered anyway.

Top Tips for opening a bottle of vino with a Power Drill:

  1. Don’t! But, if you choose to at your own risk, then …
  2. Drill a guide hole with a small drill bit first.
  3. Use as a big a drill bit as you dare, make sure you’re not going to hit the glass.
  4. Drill in as far as you dare without going all the way through, then suck out the cork dust with a vacuum or wash it out with water. Reduces the amount of cork sawdust in the vino.
  5. Decant the wine through a tea strainer to get as many of the gritty bits out as you can.

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