No need for corkscrew.. but is this method safe?

I've actually used a drill & wood screw, before. With this, id be worried about my eyes, or the bottle breaking.

Or, finding a wall sturdy enough; in America, most walls are flimsy sheetrock, unlike europe.

Will this method work for champagne??

Well, at least its a reason to start undressing.

i wouldn't try it with champagne.. thats like opening a can of soda with a paint shaker.

the wine should be fine, the shoes insole and rubber sole act as a dampener for the impact on the bottle which is pretty thick walled.

one thing that bothers me though is people opening champagne bottles with a kitchen knife.... i just dont look forward to champagne with shards of glass inside.

hope that helps

looks kind of fun, but honestly please don't do this with any half decent bottle! good wine deserves respect. Although I will try this, most cheap wines are going the screw-top route over here (some of the higher-end ones too!) but a cool party trick none the less. with bottle owners consent, of course. potentially ruinous to older wines.

You wouldn't really need to do this with champagne, but it would be funny to see you try from behind something sturdy.

The Idea is to do it firmly, any wine bottle should be sturdy enough to do this. The shoes sole applies pressure evenly across the bottom of the bottle, which transfers through the wine into the cork. This is also why it can ruin that expensive bottle you were saving for xmas.

reply to post by vandalheart


The screw top is a superior storage method, and will yield a better lasting wine with far more fragrance every time.

Corks are attractive and traditional, and obviously aesthetically preferrable. But for the best solution, the screw top is the way to go.

I think that this originated in France... I saw a YouTube video about it in French earlier today. What else... I should have used a shoe when I was trying to knock the rock hard sugar free from the sugar shaker this morning - maybe it wouldn't have shattered.

Thx for chimin guys

So for here in America I'm still getting half the wine bottles have corks

Sometimes the same brand has screws, but sometims corks which catches me off guard as I often have a bottle of wine in the hotel and need to bother staff just for one (they should have corkscrews in hotels) but dont unless there's a kitchenette and even then most of the time, dont.

Cheers

This is perfect. So often I find myself walking down the street with my bottle of wine, and damn it if I just forgot my cork screw at home. Besides that, using a cork screw makes you look like a crazy alcoholic.

So yeah... This is better.

Very classy. I'm impressed. Just stick a bottle of "nice" wine in a well-worn leather shoe and pound it on the nearest rock or brick wall for ten seconds or so. It sounds so appetizing having your wine thoroughly mixed and shaken up prior to pouring. This makes sure any residue at the bottom of the bottle is thoroughly mixed with the liquid. It's not as if you are going to decant it or let it breathe a while first--such old-fashioned traditions have no place in modern oenology. Your guests will marvel at your ingenuity.

Even in this day of twist-off tops I can't imagine being without a corkscrew. One has taken up permanent residence in my travel bag, so really, there's no excuse not to have one. Be that as it may, I guess some people are just careless, thus the necessity of finding a brick wall to pound against.

But indulge me. I'm curious as to how this works, exactly. I'm just unsure about the laws of physics here. At first glance it would appear that knocking a bottle against a wall bottom first would tend to drive the cork INTO the bottle, not out of it. The reason for this is that the cork is held in place by friction resulting from the expansion of the cork as it is placed in the neck of the bottle. Observe any corking tool, large or small, to see how the cork is "squished" before being shoved into the neck of the bottle. The cork is further entrenched when the wine is stored on its side, assuring the cork remains wet and will expand even more.

Now, as the bottle is driven into the wall it suddenly stops. All momentum stops, but the cork, by virtue of not being actually attached to the glass of the neck, would tend to keep moving toward the wall. The first few whacks act to break the cork loose from its entrenched position. The later few whacks would drive the cork TOWARD THE WALL, not away from it, therefore INTO the bottle, not out of it.

Obviously, the demonstration proves the opposite happens. The question is, why is that? My theory is thus:

ALL wine is produced by the replacement of sugar with alcohol caused by yeast which ferments and "makes the change" in the grape mixture. Most all of this process takes place prior to bottling. In fact, if you make your own wine, you can see this happening first in the tub, then in the carboy as the bubbles pass through to the atmosphere via your airlock. When the process is finished and there are few to no bubbles, the wine is ready for bottling. That is done and the wine is aged for a given amount of time, this being much more important for reds than whites. Either way, if you drink wine before its time it is considered "young," just not quite ready for the enjoyable sip.

But has the fermentation step entirely finished? Indeed, many wines have an effervescence that would suggest not. Badger Mountain(r) Riesling, for example, not only has a slight "smoky" flavor, but also a noticeable "twang" of effervescence--certainly nowhere near your average Diet Pepsi, but you can still detect it ever-so-slightly. Champagne, of course, has this essence in spades by intention. This would suggest that all wine has a small amount of carbonation in the wine itself. Now consider this fact as the bottle is whacked against the stone wall. What would happen?

Your wine is unmercifully shaken up as no wine ever should be. This causes the carbonation to rise to the surface. A bottle of champagne thus treated would explode its top, would it not? That's why its plastic cork is firmly implanted and held in place by a wire mesh. So do the same thing with a more stately bottle of wine and what would happen? The cork would be pushed OUTWARD by the pressure of the escaped carbonation, allowing you to remove it by hand.

Of course, you have fundamentally altered the wine, if not destroyed it, in the process, and its proximity to shoe leather is bound to leave a sour taste. I mean, why not go lick your host's feet?

The bottom line is that this is a fundamentally lower-class thing to do to fine wine, and the lower classes only drink fortified Mad Dog or Ripple anyway, and they have screw tops, so the point is moot.

And shame on you for thinking this is somehow an innovative thing to do. Actually, it is revolting.