It’s happened to all of us. The anticipation of opening a new bottle of wine that you’ve probably been looking forward to for awhile, only to have the cork break in the process of opening it. Naturally, there’s an onslaught of emotions, ranging from rage, to panic, to sadness and hopelessness; at least if you take your wine as seriously as we do.
First step? Dry your eyes and take a deep breath. It’s probably going to be ok, unless you end up like us, desperately trying to open a bottle of wine in a hotel room with cheap bottle openers:
Yes, that’s two broken bottle openers stuck in the cork. It took pliers to open once we got home.
While we don’t recommend a cheap bottle opener, we’re talking about something different. We’re talking about a cork breaking inside the neck of the bottle. It happens and it absolutely sucks.
First things first. If the cork isn’t broken too far down, we recommend giving it a second go with your bottle opener but pull it out a bit gentler this time. If the cork is long enough, it should come out with no problems. If it’s not, its time to get creative.
The first reaction is to get something sharp and try to pull the cork out or push it in. While an ice pick will work, it might not be the best idea, especially if you are opening your second (or third…) bottle or are clumsy in general. For obvious reasons. A simple (and safe) alternative to a sharp object would be a wooden spoon handle, or some other type of long stemmed handle to give the cork a good push into the bottle. Be prepared that some of the pressure might force some of the wine to spray out of the bottle a bit (at least speaking from experience).
Now that you have freed your wine (at last!), you’ll want to get it out of the bottle. To create your own homemade strainer, you’ll need cheesecloth and a rubber band. If you don’t have any cheesecloth, you can easily use an unbleached coffee filter in it’s place. This will filter out all the little broken cork pieces that are inevitably floating in your wine.
Everyone has different methods for saving their wine but we recommend just going ahead and drinking it. Isn’t that just easier? We think so.
If all of this seems daunting to you, it might be best to stick to twist tops.
As a precaution, once you have the cork pushed into the bottle or removed, it’s best to smell the wine. If it smells wrong and tastes a bit funny, there may have been a problem with the corking process like a bad or old cork. If that’s the case, it might be a good idea to just cut your losses with this particular bottle. Better safe than sorry, or in the worst case scenario, unable to enjoy that particular wine again.
We hope this helps at least one person save their trapped wine.
If you have any other tips about broken corks or even any tips you’d like us to cover, please let us know in the comments!
Cheers!
