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Information about Corkscrew (tool)

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A basic corkscrew
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A kind of French corkscrew
A corkscrew is a tool for drawing stopping corks from wine bottles. Generally, it comprises a pointed metallic helix attached to a handle. The user grips the handle and screws the metal point through the cork, entwining the cork and corkscrew so that moving one moves the other. Corkscrews are necessary because corks themselves, being small and smooth, are difficult to grip and remove. The handle of the corkscrew, often a horizontal bar of wood attached to the screw, allows for a fine, commanding grip making removal of the stopper relatively easy. Many corkscrew handles incorporate levers that further increase the amount of force that can be applied outwards upon the cork.

Its design was derived from the gun worm which was a device used by musketmen to remove unspent charges from a musket's barrel in a similar fashion.

Corks are largely associated with wine bottles, although they are being replaced with other alternative closures such as screwcaps.

In 1795, the first corkscrew patent ever was granted to the Reverend Samuell Henshall, in England. The clergyman affixed a simple disk, now known as the Henshall Button, between the worm and the shank. The disk prevents the worm from going too deep into the cork, forces the cork to turn with the turning of the crosspiece, and thus breaks the adhesion between the cork and the neck of the bottle. The disk is designed and manufactured slightly concave on the underside, which compresses the top of the cork and helps keep it from breaking apart.[1]

The Greystone campus of the Culinary Institute of America has well over 500 corkscrews on display in Saint Helena, California.

Sommelier knife

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A waiter's corkscrew
A sommelier knife or waiter's friend is a corkscrew in a folding body similar to a pocket knife. An arm extends to brace against the lip of the bottle for leverage when removing the cork, and a small hinged knife blade is housed in the handle end for removing the foil wrapping the neck of many wine bottles. These are often deemed to be the fastest corkscrews.

Corkscrew collections

In August 2006 the University of California, Berkeley displayed a 1,500-item corkscrew collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Kroeber Hall, on the UC campus.[2]

Since July 2006, the Montecalvo Versiggia near Pavia, Italy is displaying a collection of over 200 different types of corkscrews.

See also

References

External links

Cork material is a subset of generic cork tissue, harvested for commercial use primarily from the Cork Oak tree, Quercus suber, with Portugal producing 50% of cork worldwide.[1] Cork consists mostly of suberin.
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Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of grape juice.[1] The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients.
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bottle is a small container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a "mouth." Bottles are often made of glass, plastic or aluminum, and typically used to store liquids. e.g.
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A helix (pl: helices), from the Greek word έλικας/έλιξ
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Cork material is a subset of generic cork tissue, harvested for commercial use primarily from the Cork Oak tree, Quercus suber, with Portugal producing 50% of cork worldwide.[1] Cork consists mostly of suberin.
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stopper is a truncated conical piece of rubber, cork, glass, or plastic used to close off a glass tube, piece of laboratory glassware, a wine bottle or barrel and other containers with orifices.
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lever (from French lever, "to raise", c.f. a levant) is a rigid object that is used with an appropriate fulcrum or pivot point to multiply the mechanical force that can be applied to another object.
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In physics, force is an action or agency that causes a body of mass m to accelerate. It may be experienced as a lift, a push, or a pull. The acceleration of the body is proportional to the vector sum of all forces acting on it (known as net force or resultant force).
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musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore long gun, which is intended to be fired from the shoulder. The date of origin of muskets remains unknown, but they are mentioned as early as the late 14th century in Chinese military books such as Huo Long Jing.
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wine bottle is a bottle used for holding wine, generally made of glass. Some wines are fermented in the bottle, others are bottled only after fermentation. They come in a large variety of sizes, several named for Biblical kings and other figures.
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Alternative wine closures are substitutes used in the wine industry for sealing wine bottles in place of traditional cork closures. The emergence of these alternatives have grown in response to quality control efforts by winemakers to protect against "cork taint" caused by the
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A screwcap is a type of alternative wine closure that is gaining increasing support as an alternative to cork for sealing wine bottles. A screwcap is a metal cap that screws onto threads on the neck of a bottle.
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St. Helena, California
Location in Napa County and the state of California
Country United States
State California
Counties Napa
Area
 - City  4.
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sommelier (pronounced /sɔməˈlje/ or suh-mal-'yAy), or wine steward, is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, commonly working in fine restaurants, who specializes in all facets of wine service.
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A pocket knife is a folding knife with a blade that fits inside the handle and that is small enough to fit in a pocket. Blades are typically no larger than 3 to 5 in. (8 to 13 cm) in length.
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University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal
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A Wine accessory is generally any equipment that may be used in the storing or serving of wine. Wine accessories include many items such as wine glasses, corkscrews, and wine racks.
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