Mar 18 2012
What You Need To Know About Corkscrews As A Crucial Tool For Wine Lovers
Cork has been used to fashion bottle stoppers for thousands of years. Historical records and artifacts show that cork stoppers for wine jugs had been used as far back as 500 BC. The early Romans also used cork stoppers that they then coated with pitch to make a watertight seal.
Cork stoppers prevented air from getting into the wine bottle. Over time, individuals noticed that wine improved with age. This improvement made aged wine more valuable. People began collecting and storing wines instead of just drinking them outright. This made cork stoppers much more necessary.
Unfortunately, cork has one drawback in that it tends to break apart easily. Cork stoppers were only driven in partway for a long time so that they could be easier to pry out of the bottle. Until somebody figured out a method to get the cork out easily, stoppers were not a practical way to totally seal a bottle.
If the cork was driven all the way in to the bottle, trying to pry it out would result in pieces of cork floating in the wine. To truly make it feasible to properly collect and store fine wines, it was crucial to have a way to remove the cork easily and in one piece.
While we’re not sure exactly when, at some point in the early 17th century someone came up with an easier way to pull the cork out of a bottle. Referred to as a “steel worm”, soldiers had a metal tool that they used to draw bullets and wadding out of their muskets. Somebody had the brilliant idea to use that tool to draw out a wine cork.
A great corkscrew uses leverage to pull the cork cleanly, effortlessly and in one piece. Sadly, this may be tricky for numerous people. If you do not have the tool in far enough, the cork can break.
The most recent answer to the issue of uncorking wine is the rabbit corkscrew. This version of the corkscrew is a lot easier to make use of. The rabbit corkscrew has a lever which puts the screw in and draws out the cork.
Although wine bottles are now found with metal or plastic stoppers, true wine lovers swear that only cork is used in fine wines. Wine with other stopper materials are still looked down on as inferior or cheap. If you need a gift for a genuine wine lover, you will never go wrong with a great quality corkscrew.
The author has many interests and writes about many things. Check out his new site about under counter wine glass rack. To stop by his other site about space heaters, visit here.
