New Corkscrew: The Durand .. A Web Video

I know most of you know about this device.

Mark Taylor is a friend and has put together a web video on the use of The Durand.

Disclaimer: The movie was made during a tasting at which I was present. I have no financial interest here.

Here is the new web video from Mark on the use of this device.

Click on See The Durand in Action

http://www.thedurand.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cheers,

Mark sent me one of these. I have to say, it is an impressively engineered device. I can’t wait to open something really old with a crappy cork so that this device can conquer it!

The trouble with this item has always been price. It is a great idea, apparently well engineered and manufactured, but $125???

It is unfortunate because I could really use one, but filtering out bits of cork does not cause me $125 of pain.

What was the cost of the original screwpull? IIRC it was in this price range (or even higher until the patent ran out). If they can get it out there it might do well. The problem is the market is a bit more limited than for a general corkscrew.

great idea but too expensive. very niche product though so it probably has to be expensive to make it a worthwhile business proposition. I don’t see the average wine drinker ever buying one of these.

you could probably get the same effect by combining a cheap “ah-so” and appropriately shaped corkscrew…stick the corkscrew in, then the ah-so over the top.

Mo, I have done that in the past, especially with old German corks that seem to want to drop into the bottle if you even stare at them the wrong way. The Durand is basically a rock-sold, hyper-engineered version of the same. I also agree that the pricetag is steep, although it seems to be a tool that will last a lifetime. If it were $40 it would be an utter no brainer. At $125 clearly the target market needs to be less price sensitive. I can say that ANY restaurant with a serious wine program and older bottles should have one or more of these. I almost always cringe when I bring an older bottle to a restaurant and have to beg wine servers to put the bottle down on the table and not try to open it holding the bottle up in the air. It always ends with a broken cork and the server heading off to find a strainer to decant through…

Don…see if we can get a berserker exclusive going at a discounted rate.
w/ a discount, I’d be interested in this. As others say, this is a great looking product

+uno.

I will email Mark and see what they can do.

Thanks for posting Don! Great to see a lot of familiar faces in that video.

Used it the other day on a couple of 50+ year old burgs…works just so well. Would have never got the cork out in one, and would have otherwise had to muck around decanting etc to remove all the bits otherwise, which was not what I wanted at all.

A really great tool and highly recommended.

What a neat idea! I’d buy one but indeed $125 seems steep. I wonder why they price so high.

Looks like a pretty good idea…it combines two old ones, the ah-so and the corkscrew, but who would have thought of doing that?

Nice video too…Don, you look great!

There you go!

I got a Durand a few months back and it’s one of the best wine purchases I have ever made.

With shipping to New Zealand and the conversion rate it ended up costing me $180 NZD. Ouch!

But I have to say it has preformed perfectly on every bottle, and I think everything I’ve opened with it has been worth more than what I paid for the Durand so it’s been a great investment. It just works so well on old corks (20+ years) or corks that are dry or damaged.

I hosted an old bottle dinner for 40 people where I ended up opening 70% of other people bottles with it because they were having problems. The Durand nailed it every time.

Worth every cent to me. The thing is awesome! If you regularly open bottles of old wine, it is a no brainer even at that price.

I finally gave in and bought one over Christmas (although it hasn’t arrived in HK yet) after my trusty screwpull completely eviscerated the cork on a '59 Cote Rotie.

I have used the Durand for nearly 2 years now on over a hundred bottles and shown it to wine lovers in the USA, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Mexico and the UK at offlines and dinners, including many in the Port trade.

It has performed extremely well on old Bordeaux, Burgundies, Rioja, very old Vintage Ports, ancient Madeira bottlings and Sauternes.

It has never failed to extract the entire cork and only on very rare occasions was the full cork not intact without any fracturing.

Yes, $125 is not inexpensive, but for the cost of one fine bottle of wine … this will last the rest of your lifetime.

I’m working on exactly what kind of deal we’ll have available for this on BerserkerDay - stand by!

I got one for christmas and I too gotta say that it is one heck of an impressively engineered device! I’ve used it a few times now and it works great. Sure it isn’t cheap, I’ll be the first to admit that, but after using it I am a convert. Anyone who opens older bottles should get one. The rest of you Berserkers who only like young overripe fruit bombs need not worry