Open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew and not die trying. It has ever happened to us, or it could happen to us, that we want to open a bottle of wine, and we don’t have a corkscrew, to be able to do it.
This type of thing always happens at the worst moment, when we are in the company of a loved one, or at the time of an important celebration.
For these uncomfortable situations, we will give some guidelines on how to open the wine bottle, and thus successfully escape this type of mishap.

Open a bottle of wine

We looked and looked for the corkscrew and couldn’t find it. No need to get nervous, we can do other things.
Alternatives to open the wine bottle

Open the bottle with a knife

To begin with, we will say that it is preferable to use a knife with a serration on one of its edges, since this gives us much more grip on the cork.
The procedure is not dangerous, but maximum precautions should be taken.
The first thing we will do is stick the knife in the middle of the cork, and up to the middle of it. We must ensure that the knife does not go through the cork, to prevent cork shavings from falling into the wine.
Next, we slowly turn the knife clockwise, and observe that the knife is picking up the coch.
Once this step is done, we now have the most difficult part solved. Now we will notice that the cork rotates slowly with each movement we make.
As the cork rotates together with the knife, we begin to pull upward very slowly, paying attention that the cork comes out with each movement of ours, both in rotation and in upward force.
We repeat the turns as many times as the cork demands when it comes out of the bottle.
In a few minutes we will have solved our problem, and we can start enjoying our wine.

Open the bottle with a ring and an pen

With this shape we are going to build a corkscrew without meaning to.
The screw is preferably a ring like those used to hang lamps or pictures.
We insert the ring through the threaded part in the center of the cork, as we would do with any corkscrew.
Once we have inserted it all, we pass a pen through its cylindrical part, and we begin to rotate, slowly pulling upwards.
In this way, we will also have solved our problem.

Open the bottle with a screw and hammer

This form could be considered an alternative to the previous one. We simply need a screw, preferably the same length as the cork.
With a screwdriver, we insert the screw into the cork in the usual way as when we screw something.
When we have the screw inserted into the cork, with the back of a hammer, we proceed to put the head of the screw into the slots of the hammer.
Using a little leverage, we begin the maneuver of pulling upwards, so that the cork comes out.
We should not have any problem removing the cork from the bottle, to be able to drink our wine.

Open the bottle with a shoe

Perhaps this is the most original way and the one that requires the most skill from us.
If we are in the middle of the field, and we don’t have a screw, nor a screwdriver, much less a hammer, all is not lost.
We can always use something that we always carry with us, a shoe. How to do it?
We insert the base of the wine bottle into the shoe at the heel.
We hit the shoe against a surface, hard like the ground, a wall, a tree, etc.
The force of the impact in each blow causes the wine to push the small air chamber that always exists between the liquid and the cork, and this pushes the cork upwards.
In this way, with a little patience, we will have the bottle open and ready to be served and taste the wine inside.

Conclusions

Any of the methods discussed here require a little patience and care to open a bottle of wine.
Not having a corkscrew at any given time is not a problem when it comes to enjoying a glass of wine with friends or family. One of the wines that we recommend is the López de Haro Crianza red wine, an excellent Rioja that is perfect to give as a gift to friends and family with a great price that you can find on our Iberowine website.

article written by J. Simón