How to Open and Serve a Bottle of Wine

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Some attention should be paid to opening a bottle of wine properly. The friendwich.com authoritative guide on opening a bottle of wine applies to non-sparkling wines of all kinds:

Essential Tools: sharp scissors, paper towel and cork puller

There is a very popular wine opener design with a foil cutter on one end and the screw on the other. If you have one of those, be sure it cuts cleanly all the way around. Or use a decent pair of scissors to remove the foil/plastic cover. (not kitchen shears, just a sharp-enough pair of scissors)

  1. Remove most or all of the cover to the bottle of wine with the scissors or cutter end of your cork screw.
  2. Remove the cork. There are a myriad of pullers. I use the kind often used by restaurant waiters. Trader Joe's used to sell an excellent puller that did no harm to the cork, but came with no instructions on how to pull the cork consistently. (Hint, twist the puller slightly while pulling up) If you are using a screw-style, one should stop before the screw comes out the bottom of the cork.
  3. WIPE THE TOP OF THE BOTTLE OFF with the paper towel. Pay attention to getting the lip and top 1" of the bottle clean.
  4. Pour. Not recklessly though. Pour at a speed well below glurgling and give the bottle a slight turn before ending your pour to eliminate drips. Classy!!

If you do not plan on finishing the bottle in a sitting, put the cork
back in. A bottle of wine can stay good for a couple of days quite
easily if you put the cork back in in a couple of minutes.

Corkscrew Recommendations

I would rather spend the difference between the products listed below and some of those fancy pullers on another bottle (or two or more!) of wine. All links go to amazon.com. Buying from the links below supports Friendwich.com
$15 and probably your last cork screw: Fancy Waiter-Style Cork Screw

$9 with not as nice a foil cuttter: Fancy Waiter-Style Cork Screw

Cork puller that's good for those who are cork aware. This is the kind that I used to see at TJ's. Fancy Cork Puller

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Comments

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for sharing!