For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with cork breaking as
it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So type pull. ANYBODY HAVE ADVICE
ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS? Thanks...

"Ge2933" > wrote in message
...
> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with cork breaking
as
> it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So type pull. ANYBODY HAVE
ADVICE
> ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS?

Yeah, you need one of those Chinese made gizmos they carry at the better
wine shops. Very useful for extracting a cork you've pushed into the bottle
by accident while trying to get it out with a Screwpull, Ah-So or whatever.

It has three long wires with an inward facing bracket at the end of each.
You hook the bottom side of the cork with it and just pull the entire mess
out of the bottle. There'll still be cork detritus floating in the bottle,
but I'm sure you can handle that.

Tom S.

On 04 May 2004 01:09:57 GMT, (Ge2933) wrote:

>For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with cork breaking as
>it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So type pull. ANYBODY HAVE ADVICE
>ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS? Thanks...

I have managed to extract corks from bottles from the 1920's with the
classic double blade cork remover. You slip one prong in and with a
gentle oscillationg motion you get the two prongs right down between
the necc and the cork and gently pull.

Mike

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France
email link http://www.tommasi.org/mymail

"Ge2933" > wrote in message
...
> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with cork breaking
as
> it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So type pull. ANYBODY HAVE
ADVICE
> ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS? Thanks...

Tom's and Mike's are good. But they forgot to mention the liberal use of
your favorite curse word. Doesn't necessarily make the cork go more
smoothly, but you generally feel better...

(Ge2933) wrote:

> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with
> cork breaking as it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So
> type pull. ANYBODY HAVE ADVICE ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS?

Take the standard screwpull, but only T-top with worm, leave off
the bell-shaped other part. Screw in totally, and pull out very
gently. I found this method working best.

M.

Salut/Hi Michael Pronay,

le/on 4 May 2004 07:24:56 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

(Ge2933) wrote:
>
>> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with
>> cork breaking as it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So
>> type pull. ANYBODY HAVE ADVICE ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS?
>
>Take the standard screwpull, but only T-top with worm, leave off
>the bell-shaped other part. Screw in totally, and pull out very
>gently. I found this method working best.

You took the words out of my mouth. I _have_ known even that method
sometimes can pull the middle out of a VERY decayed cork, but one can often
feel the softness on the way in, and cant the screw over for a second
attempt to try to get the pull over a wider section of the cork. But at the
end of the day, if the cork is truly stuck and rotten the only answer it sot
decant through a little stainless steel sieve. It might be better to remove
as much of the cork as possible, and also to clean up the outside
meticulously before trying.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

Ian Hoare > wrote:

>>> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with
>>> cork breaking as it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So
>>> type pull. ANYBODY HAVE ADVICE ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS?

>> Take the standard screwpull, but only T-top with worm, leave
>> off the bell-shaped other part. Screw in totally, and pull out
>> very gently.

> You took the words out of my mouth. I _have_ known even that
> method sometimes can pull the middle out of a VERY decayed cork,
> but one can often feel the softness on the way in, and cant the
> screw over for a second attempt to try to get the pull over a
> wider section of the cork. But at the end of the day, if the
> cork is truly stuck and rotten the only answer it sot decant
> through a little stainless steel sieve. It might be better to
> remove as much of the cork as possible, and also to clean up the
> outside meticulously before trying.

Btw, working with the bottle posed in a decanting craddle or
basket will minimize the risk of cork pieces falling into the
wine.

M.

Whilst I usually use a Leverpull I have a very old
- Victorian, I think - barrel type corkscrew which
has a very very close shallow angled thread on it so that
it needs many turns both to get into the cork and
to pull it out. Modern versions often concentrate
on speed and this one winse because it not only goes
into the cork gently and in so many places that it
seems to hold it together but also pulls it out very
slowly and gently.

I have seen modern corkscrews in specialist shops which
have the same feature and would recommend anyone to
have a similar one for older bottles.
It is especially good with port bottles and I wonder
if that was what it was made for originally.
--

Tim Hartley


St Emilion - Alleluia

>I have managed to extract corks from bottles from the 1920's with the
>classic double blade cork remover. You slip one prong in and with a
>gentle oscillationg motion you get the two prongs right down between
>the necc and the cork and gently pull.

I think that's the same as the AH-SO. I have a vintage double helix corkscrew
that works well on old croks. They're hard to find but invaluable if you can
locate one. It's basically a traditional corkscrew with two side by side
screws. It has double the "bite" for old crumbly corks.
Bi!!

>But at the
>end of the day, if the cork is truly stuck and rotten the only answer it sot
>decant through a little stainless steel sieve.
<Snip>

I have a polymer micro screen filter that slips into the neck that I use for VP
and wines with cork and sediment. IT works like a pourer and even has a little
snap on cap to close it when not pouring.
Bi!!

Ian Hoare wrote:

>>Take the standard screwpull, but only T-top with worm, leave off
>>the bell-shaped other part. Screw in totally, and pull out very
>>gently. I found this method working best.
>
>
> You took the words out of my mouth. I _have_ known even that method
> sometimes can pull the middle out of a VERY decayed cork, but one can often
> feel the softness on the way in, and cant the screw over for a second
> attempt to try to get the pull over a wider section of the cork. But at the
> end of the day, if the cork is truly stuck and rotten the only answer it sot
> decant through a little stainless steel sieve. It might be better to remove
> as much of the cork as possible, and also to clean up the outside
> meticulously before trying.

Far be it from me to contravene the advice of you two, but in my
experience a high quality "waiter's friend" a la Laguiole has been the
most effective at removing a rotten cork. I find that using it on a
slight bias actually seems to improve the removal. However, my
experience pales in comparison to that of you both, so I will quietly
recede into the background...

Mark Lipton

"RV WRLee" > wrote in message
...
> I have a vintage double helix corkscrew
> that works well on old corks. They're hard to find but invaluable if you
can
> locate one.

Ah, yes. That would be a vintage 1953 Watson & Crick. Much superior to the
more complicated Linus Pauling, which had three helices...

S moT

Mark Lipton > wrote:

> Far be it from me to contravene the advice of you two, but in my
> experience a high quality "waiter's friend" a la Laguiole has
> been the most effective at removing a rotten cork.

Laguiole is the second best to a tabletop screwpull. The reasons
for me preferring screwpull are quite simple: First, the screwpull
coil has an even larger "envergure" (= diameter) than a Laguiole,
although not by very much, which means that the forces applicated
within in the cork apply more to the bottle neck than a Laguiole
(and even less than a standard waiter's friend); second - but
that's a very personal experience that might not be shared by
others -, my Laguiole is my standard working corkscrew, so the
original teflon coating is long gone, while my seldom used
screwpull still sees 90% of its coating intact, which means that
it screws into a potentially disintegrating cork much smoother.

But, I agree: This applies very, very old corks - over 50 years
old - *only*, while I have absolutely no problem using my Laguiole
for everything younger than that.

M.

One sometimes finds an old cork that is very soft and crumbles very
easily, but also nearly seems to be glued to the neck of the bottle.
These can be a real problem. You sometimes have to "mine" out the top
portions of the cork, especially the parts that are stuck to the glass
of the neck. Sometimes when about half of the cork is mined out, you can
put a corkscrew in on a slant and extract the remaining cork without
bits remaining stuck to the glass. I once had to spend about 15 minutes
removing such a problem cork.

Another way is to use port tongs. I have port tongs, but they seem to be
difficult to find now. My problem is the part of the iron that fits
around the neck must be heated to a very high temperature, and my
electric range does not work for this. I have to start a charcoal grill
and heat the irons on the glowing charcoal. Thus I nearly never use the
tongs. However they are quite fast and effective once they are hot
enough. You just clamp them around the neck of the bottle for a short
time, remove them, and rapidly apply a very wet rag around the heated
area. The neck cracks off cleanly, and you just lift the neck containing
the cork off of the bottle. Port tongs were much more practical when
many homes had a fireplace, coal or wood fueled range, etc. going much
of the time so that the tongs could be heated rapidly without a lot of
fuss.

"Cwdjrx _" > wrote in message
...
> Port tongs were much more practical when
> many homes had a fireplace, coal or wood fueled range, etc. going much
> of the time so that the tongs could be heated rapidly without a lot of
> fuss.

Wouldn't an electric heated set of port tongs be a nifty wine-geek toy?
Does anyone make such a thing?

Tom S

Ge2933 wrote:

> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with cork breaking as
> it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So type pull. ANYBODY HAVE ADVICE
> ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS? Thanks...

I'm sure I'm being very crude & uncouth for even suggesting this,
but I just get what I can with my screwpull, then push the rest
of the cork into the bottle, and decant (mesh filter on the funnel
catches any small pieces of cork along with the sediment from a
wine that old). While pouring into the decanter, I push something
(the only use I have for an ah-so) down the neck of the bottle to
prevent it from blocking the wine.

>> For wines 20-40 years old, I've frequently had problems with cork breaking
>as
>> it is extracted with a Screwpull, or an Ah-So type pull. ANYBODY HAVE
>ADVICE
>> ON EXTRACTING OLD CORKS? Thanks...
>
>I'm sure I'm being very crude & uncouth for even suggesting this,
>but I just get what I can with my screwpull, then push the rest
>of the cork into the bottle, and decant (mesh filter on the funnel
>catches any small pieces of cork along with the sediment from a
>wine that old). While pouring into the decanter, I push something
>(the only use I have for an ah-so) down the neck of the bottle to
>prevent it from blocking the wine.

Wy not just push the whole cork into the bottle then? Less to filter I would
think (I don't have any 40 YO bottles so I'm just replying to the above
suggestion .

George Cox

(Cggeorgecox) wrote:

> Wy not just push the whole cork into the bottle then?

Because once you get problems with a crumbling cork, you can bet
that you will get exactly the same problems trying to push the
cork into the bottle: the middle part will crumble into the wine,
while the outer face will stick to the glass as if it was melted
to it.

M.

Cggeorgecox wrote:

> Wy not just push the whole cork into the bottle then? Less to filter I would
> think (I don't have any 40 YO bottles so I'm just replying to the above
> suggestion .

Me either, but I've had the same problem with much younger
bottles. My oldest right now is about 16 yo.

Four problems with your suggestion:

1. The preferred method, of course, is to get the whole
thing out, cleanly and neatly, with a screwpull. You
don't know whether this will work until you've tried
it, at which time it will be too late. And I'm not
going to default to pushing it in because I think that
maybe it'll break when I try to pull it out.

2. I've never tried to push an entire cork in, but I
imagine it'd be much harder than pushing in just the
part that breaks off.

3. If the cork is brittle enough to break when I pull it,
then it's probably brittle enough to break along the
sides when I try to push it in.

4. I don't know if having less to filter really gains me
anything. I pour the entire bottle through the filter
and into the decanter anyway, so why do I care how
many cork fragments are floating in the wine? The
filter will catch whatever is there without any
greater effort on my part.

Larry Coon > wrote in :

> Cggeorgecox wrote:
>
>> Wy not just push the whole cork into the bottle then? Less to filter
>> I would think (I don't have any 40 YO bottles so I'm just replying to
>> the above suggestion .
>
> Me either, but I've had the same problem with much younger
> bottles. My oldest right now is about 16 yo.
>
> Four problems with your suggestion:
>
> 1. The preferred method, of course, is to get the whole
> thing out, cleanly and neatly, with a screwpull. You
> don't know whether this will work until you've tried
> it, at which time it will be too late. And I'm not
> going to default to pushing it in because I think that
> maybe it'll break when I try to pull it out.
>

As one who has resorted to pushing corks many times when in college and in
the army-Necessity is the mother of invention, it is not the difficult but
can be messy if you don't ease up the pressure at just the last moment. You
actually get very little cork breakage this way so there is less than if
one repeatedly forced the corksrew down the cork breaking of a little more
each time

>>> Wy not just push the whole cork into the bottle then? Less to filter
>>> I would think (I don't have any 40 YO bottles so I'm just replying to
>>> the above suggestion .
>>
>> Me either, but I've had the same problem with much younger
>> bottles. My oldest right now is about 16 yo.
>>
>> Four problems with your suggestion:
>>
>> 1. The preferred method, of course, is to get the whole
>> thing out, cleanly and neatly, with a screwpull. You
>> don't know whether this will work until you've tried
>> it, at which time it will be too late. And I'm not
>> going to default to pushing it in because I think that
>> maybe it'll break when I try to pull it out.
>>
>
>As one who has resorted to pushing corks many times when in college and in
>the army-Necessity is the mother of invention, it is not the difficult but
>can be messy if you don't ease up the pressure at just the last moment. You
>actually get very little cork breakage this way so there is less than if
>one repeatedly forced the corksrew down the cork breaking of a little more
>each time
>
Didn't realize my little response would be taken to task (since I mentioned the
fact that I don't own any of bottles in this age range). The prospect of
pushing a cork back into the bottle seamed much easier than picking out the
pieces of a broken cork being pushed into the bottle after taking out as much
of the cork as possible was mentioned in the message I originally replied to.

Until I have more experience in this area I will defer to the veterans. I
enjoy reading this group (been doing it for years) and want to start
contributing to the conversations here more often. Hope to not step on too many
toes

TIA

George Cox

Cggeorgecox wrote:

> Didn't realize my little response would be taken to task (since I mentioned the
> fact that I don't own any of bottles in this age range).

Hey, this is Usenet...

> The prospect of
> pushing a cork back into the bottle seamed much easier than picking out the
> pieces of a broken cork being pushed into the bottle after taking out as much
> of the cork as possible [. . .]

Decanters make it easy. Most will use a funnel for getting
the wine into the decanter, and most funnels will come with
a mesh filter for catching sediment in the wine. So catching
cork floaties comes with no additional cost or effort. And
since the wine is old and therefore likely to have sediment,
decanting is something you'd likely be doing anyway.