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Best corkscrews to open bottles of wine with ease
Every home needs a decent corkscrew. We round up the best of the bunch to help you open any bottle of wine with ease.
By Kelly Rose Bradford | Last updated Apr 17, 2024
Whether you're a wine buff of you like the occasional bottle of plonk, you'll want to ensure you can open any bottle with ease. And a good quality corkscrew can make all the difference. If you're used to wrangling and wrestling corks out of bottle necks, it's time for an upgrade.
From electric to manual corkscrews, simple winged models to blowout buys for wine connoisseurs, we've rounded up the very best options on the market, including recommendations from industry experts.
Here are the best corkscrews to buy.
1. Best overall corkscrew: HiCoup Waiter's Friend Corkscrew
Price: £8 | Buy now from Amazon
This traditional, waiter’s friend-style corkscrew is a great price and comes nicely boxed, so it would make a good present. Spec-wise, it's basic but it’s the sort of corkscrew that pros swear by. It has a simple, sleek design with a foil cutter, an ergonomic handle and a mega-strong stainless steel worm (that’s the curly bit that goes in the cork). We don’t think you can go wrong with this one on price, looks and functionality.
2. Best budget corkscrew: Brabantia Classic Corkscrew
Price: £7 | Buy now from Amazon
This is a bargain buy from a brand we all know and love, but that’s not the main reason we like it. It’s the extra large turning handle that sells it to us. And its chunky design which means it's easy to hold and use for those that struggle with dexterity, or anyone that doesn't like flimsy designs. Its other huge plus point is that the worm is housed inside the plastic body so you're not going to stab yourself when rummaging in the drawer for it, and it’s not going to scratch anything nearby. A great buy and some fab features for the price.
3. Best manual corkscrew: Le Creuset 3-in-One Waiter's Corkscrew
Price: £33 | Buy now from Amazon
We all know Le Creuset is a name we can trust - it's one of the most-recommended brands on the Mumsnet forums when it comes to all things kitchen. And this 3-in-one corkscrew gets a lot of good reviews online. It’s a one-stop-shop for your home bar needs and it has a bottle opener and a foil cutter for both wine and beer. It is made from stainless steel, and crafted with a stylish wooden handle. It can whip out both natural and synthetic corks with ease, and has a serrated blade for cutting. It comes with a 10-year guarantee, and while it's not the cheapest option, it's certainly a great buy for peace of mind from a reliable brand.
4. Best electric corkscrew: EZBasics Electric Wine Bottle Opener kit
Price: £25 | Buy now from Amazon
This is a whizzy little set for a fantastic price. If you like your wine but don't want to spend silly money on getting some kit to complement your collection, this would be a brilliant entry-level buy. It consists of an electric bottle opener, a foil cutter, a wine aerator pourer and a vacuum stopper. It recharges via USB, and is a pretty snazzy 4-in-1 set that will make opening your wine and sealing any leftovers (as if) a breeze.
5. Best corkscrew for gifting: Cellardine Lever Action Corkscrew Set
Price: £30 | Buy now from Amazon
This would make for a great practical pressie to take to a dinner party, or to give as a housewarming gift. It's nicely boxed, and consists of a wine bottle chiller and a lever corkscrew, and both look the part - designed with fuss-free styling and well presented in a gift box. The chiller sleeve cools warm wine or water in just five minutes. Just leave it in the freezer until you want to use it, then pop it on your wine bottle and it will then keep it cold for five hours - great for alfresco drinks and for taking on picnics. The corkscrew is a lever design which will take out all sorts of corks - foam, traditional and synthetic, and is very nicely engineered.
6. Best luxury corkscrew: Coravin Timeless Model Three + Wine Preservation System
Price: £230 | Buy now from Amazon
This is of course much, much, more than just a corkscrew. In fact, it isn’t a corkscrew as such at all, but a wine preserving system that enables you to have a glass of wine without removing the cork from the bottle, and then preserving what’s left. The wine gas capsules protect the wine from oxidation, and keeps it fresh for your next tipple. Yes, it’s pricey, but it gets the thumbs up from industry experts and sommeliers, and if you like expensive wine and hate waste, it is totally worth the money. (It looks very swish, too).
7. Best winged corkscrew: John Lewis & Partners Winged Corkscrew
Price: £6 | Buy now from John Lewis & Partners
Fans of this simple design rave about its robust construction, and while it’s not going to win any prizes for being anything out of the ordinary, it offers everything you'd want from a winged corkscrew: a strong stainless steel worm and wing-levers, and an integrated bottle opener. Perfect for those days when you fancy a bottle of beer instead.
8. Best pocket knife corkscrew: Victorinox Waiter Swiss Army Pocket Knife
Price: £19 | Buy now from Amazon
Who doesn't love the versatility of a Swiss Army knife? And if you're looking for a penknife with a corkscrew accessory, there really is only one name to look for. This is described as a ‘wine lover's take everywhere tool’ and with its corkscrew, bottle opener, large blade and can opener, (as well as screwdriver, wire cutter keyring, toothpick and tweezers), we can see why. This would be an excellent gift for an outdoorsy type, or someone going off to uni. It's a handy tool to keep in your car/kitchen/bag. And it has a lifetime assurance guarantee too against any defects in material and workmanship.
9. Best corkscrew for old wine: Vinology Deluxe Electric Corkscrew
Price: £45 | Buy now from John Lewis & Partners
If you’ve got some vintage bottles in your wine cellar, you're not going to want to run the risk of a damaged cork. Check out Vinology’s deluxe electric corkscrew and put your mind at rest - it makes light work of opening wine bottles, and gets the cork out perfectly every time. It has very futuristic styling, comes with an in-built foil cutter, and is fully charged, ready to open 50 bottles straight from the box. Fans of it describe it as a great gift for gadget lovers, but more importantly, they rave about the fact it removes the risk of piercing a cork off-centre and ruining your wine. Essential kit for any wine lovers with grip or dexterity issues, too.
10. Best corkscrew for travelling: Joseph & Joseph BarWise Compact Lever Corkscrew
Price: £49 | Buy now from JosephJoseph
Are you looking at the pic and thinking, OK, so where’s the rest of it? Well this is the absolute beauty of this Joseph & Joseph corkscrew - it is TINY. Just 6cm tall, it's perfect for picnics and for travelling and on those occasions you want to slip a corkscrew in your pocket just in case… It is mega easy to use with one simple lever action, and it has twin foil cutters within the body, and a non-stick screw thread, so it can cope with any type of cork. And it looks so cute, too.
How do I choose the best corkscrew for me?
There are a lot of different types of corkscrew to choose from: electric, winged, manual, waiter's friend. So think about your usage and need - the occasional bottle of plonk? Frequent dinner parties with wine pairing? A huge interest and burgeoning wine cellar? Essentially, buy the best corkscrew you can afford in relation to how often you are going to use it. And, top tip - always have a couple of cheap manual ones in the drawer so you don't end up with a queue to uncork bottles at parties!
What type of corkscrew do sommeliers use?
The experts tend to use a waiter’s friend corkscrew, which is the type with a handle, a lever and a foil cutter. To look at, they are the most basic, and you probably already have one in your cutlery drawer, but to use them efficiently requires good technique, and you need a decent model that can withhold the pressure and pulling of the cork.
What is the best corkscrew to buy?
We chose the Hicoup KitchenWare corkscrew from Amazon because of its excellent reviews, its amazing price, and because it has some nice features like an ergonomic handle and a pleasing wood trim. It’s also a sommelier/waiter’s friend style-design, which, as explained above, is the corkscrew of choice for pros!
How we chose our recommendations
Because we know that there’s nothing like a real recommendation from a real parent, we first headed to the Mumsnet forums to find out what type of corkscrew Mumsnet users had bought. We checked out the types they recommended for being easy to use, functional, and well-priced. We then did some research across the wider web, looking at which corkscrews had won accolades or been featured in ‘best buy’ lists across websites and print media, and what customer reviews said about them.
Having collated all that information, we picked the top 10 corkscrews we thought would make the best buys.
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