Researched various “ air pump cork screws” on Amazon. Pretty consistent 20% 1 star reviews complaining that device stops working after a few uses. You get what you pay for I guess.
I have one I received as a Christmas gift 2 years ago. It still works fine. Has its limitations.
Opened over 400 bottles. Use it all the time. BTW it’s been around for at least 8 to 10 years.
I have one, James. But seldom use it. Whn it works, it works fine. But on an older cork that may not have
a tight seal, it can push the cork into the btl. For the hard composite corks, doesn’t always penetrate the
cork easily. And one, on an older wine that was well-stuck in the btl, as I continued to pump away, it squirted
a stream of wine onto my short.
But when it does work, it’s fine.
Tom
These pumps have been around for ever, I was given one at least 50 years ago, and soon stopped using it.
Problem is, it works by air pressure, so if the corks is tight and there’s a weakness in the glass of the bottle…
Also, the box warns against opening irregular shaped bottles - at the time Mateus Rose was popular - as the air pressure may concentrate on a shoulder in the bottle.
When it works, it’s fine, but when I was pumping away and the cork was not budging the increasing fear of the bottle shattering led to the pump’s banishment to the drawer of unused wine gadgets
Yup, Peter…there are some btls in which the cork is in there solid and I pump & pump away. I feel like I’m holding a bomb
in my hands. That said…I’ve never heard of a btl exploding w/ this device.
Tom
In my experience (granted a while ago) Really tight corks are a problem, crumbly corks are a problem and loose corks (or certain synthetic corks) would simply get pushed into the wine.
There seem to be a number of similar pumps for sale. I bought one a few months ago and tried it on four different bottles. It didn’t work at all on three (maybe 20 pumps) and on the fourth the cork exploded out of the bottle. Returned it.
I thought it would be useful for my wife since her arthritis sometimes makes a waiter’s friend difficult. If there’s one that works well I’d like to see a specific name or link. Thanks.
Friggin’ autocorrect. Should be “shirt”, not “shorts”.
But autocorrect can be right sometimes. I typed in “bigly” the other day and it corrected it to “bigot”. Dead on.
Tom