Wine has been around for millennia, but not the corkscrew. In early days, wine was stored in earthenware vessels or in wooden barrels.

It was just a few hundred years ago that wine began to be stored in corked bottles. However, even before that, a variety of other substances were stored in a bottle with a cork, and therefore required an implement to pull the cork out.

So, where did the first corkscrew come from, and who was its inventor?  Well, we don’t really have a clear answer to that, but here is what Ron McLean, a corkscrew historian—who knew there was such a thing!—with the Virtual Corkscrew Museum has to say,

“It is unknown when and who made the first corkscrew. The first corkscrews were derived from a gun worme, a tool with a single or double spiral end fitting used to clean musket barrels or to extract an unspent charge from the barrel. By the early 17th century corkscrews for removing corks were made by blacksmiths as using a cork to stopper a bottle was well established.”

McLean’s research also lists five patents, filed in England, France, Untied States, Germany and Canada, in that order, from 1795 to 1883.

It’s interesting to note that the style of manual corkscrews hasn’t really changed much since those early days.  When the lever style corkscrew became popular in the recent past, many thought, “ooh, what an original idea.”  Many thought wrong.  The lever, or winged style wine bottle opener, has actually been around since the late eighteen hundreds and the newer designs are based on that.

Of course, today in the twenty first century, we like our gadgets and gismos.  If there’s a way to automate a day to day task, we’re all for it.  So the electric wine bottle opener is now a common thing.  Oh, you likely won’t see the sommelier at your favorite restaurant using one to open that fine cabernet or merlot  you ordered, but many a household use them and love them for the ease of extracting a cork from a bottle.  For those who find using an old style corkscrew next to impossible, or are just tired of picking crumbled cork out of their wine, investing in an electric model may be the right choice.

And if those YouTube videos you stumble across are to be believed, you can also use a phone book or the trunk of a tree to open a bottle of wine if you’ve lost your corkscrew somewhere! 

So, however today’s corkscrew came to be available, we have a variety of different styles to choose from. From the very simple screw on a handle to much more sophisticated models.

And once you get the cork out of the bottle, please drink responsibly!

You can follow me at Wine Bottle Opener, where I document and review a variety of different corkscrews and share info about wine in general.

Elle Greene

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/wine-bottle-openers-corkscrews-a-little-history-1640898.html

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