Decanter

What to do if your wine cork breaks or crumbles

Is there a foolproof way to avoid breaking corks?

The quick answer is no. You might have the best corkscrew on the market, and you might have done it a million times before. Corks crumble and break even at the hands of the most experienced sommeliers. This is especially true for old bottles which have not been stored correctly, leaving the cork dry and crumbly.

Sommeliers recommend having a two-prong opener, also known as butler’s thief, on hand and using it on older wines or if the cork looks like it may be prone to breaking.

The butler’s thief is essentially a handle with two flat metal prongs attached. They are sprung so that when you work them (cautiously) down the sides of a cork that looks/feels like it may crumble, they apply some inward pressure to the potentially dodgy cork.

Once you’ve persuaded the prongs far enough down between the cork and the inner side of the bottleneck – start with the longer of the two and use a slight lateral motion as you progress rather than pressing directly down – that pressure enables you to begin pulling up while rotating the cork out of the bottleneck.

You might even want to consider using the two-prong opener and a corkscrew simultaneously. The latter’s spiral creates more inner pressure against the prongs, allowing the cork to remain more compact while being pulled by the prongs. There is a new product on the market called the Durand, which combines these two traditional wine openers.

By Ines Salpico