When we first went wine tasting, I’d find a lot of tools at the check-out counter or in the gift shops. The wine openers and bottle toppers were the most commonly sold but after experiencing other tools in action, my thoughts were, “I want that!” Maybe because I’m drawn to cooking tools, I was especially drawn to wine tools seeing the pourer behind the counter use them.
The latest tool I recognized was at a friend’s house that had a less expensive version of a tool I had coveted for a long time. Why had I not searched far and wide for one of these? However, who thinks about needing this stuff?
Here are the basic wine tools I mostly use.
Wine Keys or Waiter’s Corkscrews
First, there is the bottle opener.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the wine key (or waiter’s corkscrew) is my favorite opener. It’s probably no coincidence since I love German-made products - yes, even my husband is German. And low and behold, the term “winekey” was made because people couldn’t pronounce the name of the inventor named Wienke.
I like it because it can fit in your pocket, in your wine bag...in your purse. If I see any other kind of opener, it’s just not the same. Let me explain. Opening a bottle with these corkscrews just makes the appeal of opening a wine more satisfying.
Lift the cork with your full-fisted hand when it’s 2/3 of the way out until you hear the pop. Again, it’s that popping sound that’s like a bottle of champagne. How can you drink champagne without hearing the pop sound?
You get my drift.
There are also automatic and electric openers but we like the simplicity of what we have. We also live in the city so our place is too small for bulkier gadgets and for Sonoma Wine Nest, I’ve kept our openers there simple too for guests.
From then, we moved on to the aerator pourers.
You can tell how much we use our favorite aerator.
I almost always use one. I’ve just gotten used to pouring silky liquid instead of splashing it everywhere. When we left a bottle out all night and drank it the next day during our first few years of drinking wine, we were amazed at how different and much more smoother it was. From then, we made sure to air out our wine.
If you drink a freshly opened bottle and you get nothing but bitter tannins, you might want to either wait about half an hour or use an aerator. If you’re paying a lot of money, even if it’s just $35 for a bottle, make sure it’s drinkable.
“Sure, your twist-off caps are fine but the joy of hearing the bottle pop and pour out like silk into a wine-barreled glass enhancing the scent is how wine drinking is defined.”
We were given one with a cold cylinder which we use for white wine and thinking back, this might have been easier to carry than the marble wine holder we hauled to Mexico to gift to the family.
Sometimes knowing more about these tools is really useful to know which one to take with you on the road for what you need them for.
Yes, decanters are nice but if you need a way to aerate your wine at the park, just take an aerator that serves as a pourer too.
How about those ports?
Ports can sit on your counter for weeks open. For small sips late at night and which we don’t drink the entire bottle, a nice way to top these is with wine stoppers.
Also, if you’re corking a sparkling wine like champagne, use a sparkling wine stopper (on the left). Sextant in Paso puts beautiful tools like this one in their member shipments. (So they deserve a shout-out.)
Next are wine stoppers.
Wine stoppers that serve as a pourer, an aerator, and a stopper are the best multifunction stoppers (the black one above). If you’re trying to figure out which one is best, this multi-functional one is the best.
My favorite wine stopper is one that has a small cork that fits in a beautiful steelhead pourer. It easily corks back in the pourer and makes a nice presentation with guests (at the top of the photo above). It’s not an aerator but for sweet wine, you don’t need one and these are best for those.
Wine stoppers are good to make a statement like a lifeguard stopper I got from a manager who knew I liked wine. They make great gifts. The stiletto pours out from the toes and is actually considered more of a pourer.
There are a lot of tools out there and I certainly don’t have the most sophisticated collection of tools. This is a nice list of the best wine openers I found for 2021.
The wine preserver - the tool I coveted for a long time.
For a long time, we had our sights set on the Coravin for $200 (but now you can find it for $149) because you can drink the wine without removing the cork. So if you have a $100 bottle but don’t want to drink it all at once, you can have your cake and eat it too.
However, there are a lot of wine preservers that work just fine. We may not need to preserve the wine for weeks or months but maybe a week. For a bottle, we might have paid $75 or even $35 and hate for it to go to waste. With these, the air is pumped out and will last 4-7 days.
Either use a pump (on the right) by placing it on top of the stopper (on the bottle) and give it a few pumps until you feel resistance. The one on the left you just place on top of the bottle, give it a few pumps and leave it on the bottle. The bottle should be able to lay down in the fridge too.
There are a lot more wine preservers too. The most thorough explanation is from our neighbors down the road Kendall-Jackson. Very nice people and obvious experts on who to ask if you’re more of a connoisseur looking for more options.
When we used our inexpensive wine preserver for the first time, we thought, nope! This didn’t work. The wine was really sour after reopening it but we learned that it was just the tannins tightening up again in a well preserved bottle. After letting the bottle breathe again, it was still fantastic. (Duh!)
I’m not sure how many bottles we could have saved but you can find wine preservers as low as $10 and they work just fine to preserve your bottle.
There are so many tools out there and when you’re dealing with works of art like that of wine, it’s important to respect the art. Treasure your wine with tools that were not only invented to enjoy them but for the experience.
Sure, your twist-off caps are fine but the joy of hearing the bottle pop and pour out like silk into a wine-barreled glass enhancing the scent is how wine drinking is defined.
(Have you closed your eyes yet?)
If you find a pretty tool, just buy it. If you know wine lovers, they’re great gifts because who thinks of needing them? If it’s one of those things that bring joy and it’s worth it.
And if you are having an issue with drinking the wine or handling it, talk to a wine expert when you’re at the wine shop.
Chances are, there is a tool for that.
What is your favorite tool?
Feel free to comment below.
Cheers!