OXO Winged Corkscrew

Pros: Very easy on your hands; great leverage
Cons: Sometimes gets off-center
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

First posted 1/26/2005

The OXO corkscrew consists of a black plastic corkscrew that screws down into the cork, surrounded by a black plastic skirt-like surround with wing-like handles and a wide twist-top. But maybe this will make more sense if I try to explain how you use it.

You raise the handles, which lifts up the surround, exposing the corkscrew. You grasp the handle at the top, press the tip of the corkscrew against the cork, and twist, pushing, so that the corkscrew enters into the cork and spirals down through it. Once it’s firmly embedded you grasp the wing-like handles and push them down. This lowers the surround and raises the corkscrew, pulling the cork free of the bottle.

Disadvantages: It’s easy to get the corkscrew off-center and end up having to start over.

Advantages: The wing-handles give you so much leverage that it’s child’s play to get most corks out of their bottles. This is absolutely fantastic for those of us with hand-problems.

This is one of the few OXO items we have that hasn’t in some way broken down; admittedly we don’t use it as often as some items, but it has certainly withstood what use we have put it through. It’s a nifty-looking design that makes opening bottles very easy on my hands despite my tendonitis. I only occasionally have troubles with the corkscrew going in off-center (I think because the surround can partially block your view of the corkscrew as you put it in, and the distance between handle and corkscrew tip decreases accuracy), and it isn’t that large of a problem.