Coolest Wine Opener Ever
Posted by Jeff Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:07:00 GMT
OK - so I have to admit. I like wine. But something hit me over the weekend: how come we haven’t really improved the process of opening wine bottles?
I mean - we have such intricate systems for making wine - involving large amounts of chemical testing, big vats, and wine ‘scientists’ going in there to make sure everything is just right. But - I guess opening the bottle is just something that we omitted.
A year prior, after I landed a gig at IBM Research, I took my parents to The First Cabin at Balboa Bay Club. Really awesome views, really awesome food. We got a bottle for like $100 and while the waitress was poping the cork “CRACK” she cracked the bottle. Now c’mon, there got to be room for improvement there.
Let’s take a look at some of the old fashion openers:
So these openers go from pure stupid to a little more sophisticated. Take the one on the left, you have to PULL the cork out with all your might. Can you imagine doing that while hammered? You’d probably drop the bottle while pulling or spill half of it.
Now, the second one is the what the waitress used to crack our bottle at First Cabin. It uses the bottle top as a hinge - GLASS as a hinge??? That’s got to be bad. The last one is the one I currently have in our apartment. But just too big to carry around.
I FOUND something this weekend that’s REALLY Cool! It’s called a Cork Pop. Here you go:
This thing is awesome. First thing you notice is that there is no cork screw, just a needle. The idea is that instead of ‘pulling’ the cork of of the bottle, you ‘push’ it out with air.
There a small canister of air on the top - you simple jab that needle-like thing into the cork and then push the button on the top. Air gets pumped into the bottle and pushes the cork out with a POP.
That thing was amazing. Definitely going to buy one for mom for Mother’s Day in 2 weeks!