This past weekend I visited my parents, which of course included opening some bottles of wine. As my dad went to open it, he pulled out this large box that contained quite the wine opener. Far larger and clunkier than a typical wine key preferred by sommeliers, this monstrosity made short work of the cork and soon we were enjoying a Sangiovese from California (also weird). Watching him use the huge opener, I was left thinking about the huge range of openers at the market and why somms prefer the traditional key.
Some quick research revealed that the wine key fits in a sommeliers pocket, as supposed to other larger openers, which is probably the most important piece to the puzzle. However, I am not convinced and believe there is some artistic flair that somms want to show off as they wield a key like a pro at your table-side.
My brain thinks in sports analogies (sorry everyone), so the best comparison I could come up with is golf clubs. Those that your everyday casual golfer uses are made to be forgiving and fun to play with. A normal set of irons these days has an enormous sweet spot, so someone who just wants to play once a month can play as well as possible without having to hone their craft with hours of practice. Hitting a ball well requires minimal precision, as compared with the clubs used by tour pros. These clubs are manufactured to the millimeter, exactly to the specifications required by the golfer, which also means the ball must be struck on the perfect spot every single time.
Is there a custom wine key maker somewhere making keys specifically to the hand size of sommeliers in the finest restaurants around? Use of the wine key is definitely harder to perfect than the giant opener that my dad used, and is that the point for somms?
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ReplyDeleteWhen I visited the Robert Mondavi winery a couple of years ago, I noticed that they used a different type of wine opener from the tradition corkscrew key – it is called a “Butler’s Friend”, and it essentially is a two-prong tool that slides on either side of the cork. With a little wiggling back and forth, you can slide the cork to the top of the bottle without ever puncturing the cork itself, leaving it perfectly intact if you want to recork the bottle later. I bought one as souvenir, and it’s since become my favorite wine opener. It doesn’t work as well on synthetic corks, but for natural corks it does the job easily without much more effort than a traditional key. I think the only downside is that there’s a bit of a learning curve, and if you don’t do it correctly then you can risk pushing the cork into the bottle. I’ve been curious as to why these haven’t caught on more, particularly at fine restaurants where as you noted Ryan, it’s more about the presentation and the precision then absolute functionality.
ReplyDeleteHere's a little more detail on the Butler’s Friend if anyone is interested – apparently it got its origins as a tool for allowing butler to make sure wine was good before they served it (or if they wanted to sample some themselves)!
http://www.wineguy.co.nz/index.php/81-all-about-wine/687-butler-s-friend