I forgot to buy someone a birthday gift, and want to get them something really cool to make up for it. A wine opener would be great. Something solid that will last forever, not a chrome-plated Brookstone special.
Any suggestions? I don’t drink, so I don’t know what to look for. Price preferably under $100.
Yup, what Dr. Who said. My mother has really bad athritis in her hands, and she looooves her wine. This wine opener makes it really easy for her to open a bottle. It’s effortless and foolproof, and cool to boot!
I’ve got one of these, which is about as solid as you can get. OTOH, if you want something tht’s elegant and unique, you might try something like this (if you don’t mind waiting two weeks for it to turn up).
Your mom might like one of these CO2 wine openers.
As for the “rabbit” style openers, there are some with a stand you can get, which makes it marg
marginally easier to open a bottle of wine.
I’m going to echo Tapioca Dextrin’s recommendation of the Laguioles. My ex got me one a while ago (she thought it somehow inappropriate that I was using my roomie’s plastic wing-operated corkscrew) and I love it. It’s very well-built, much more solid than you’d expect from something so small and polished-looking. It takes more effort than a rabbit, but to me at least it feels like it’s not trying nearly so hard to impress.
One thing about The Rabbit - it’s fine on real corks, but it doesn’t work well at all on the plastic ones.
Depends on the person you are buying for. Rabbits work well most of the time, and are easy if you have week/arthritic hands. That said a good waiter’s friend is more eligant, and better for dealing with problem corks. The heavy duty corkscrews with ratchet pull handels on both sides like Tapioca’s own corkscrew are in my oppinion the worst type. Tapioca’s second link is to the Laguioles waiter’s friend is an excellent option.
I’ve opened many plastic corks with the Rabbit. Worked fine for me.
That said, I agree with Bippy the Beardless as far as waiter’s corkscrew’s. Once you learn how to use one of them and don’t have arthritis or other hand problems, they’re the easiest and most elegant to use. I’d personally LOVE a Laguioles.
But… if you don’t drink wine often or have trouble with waiter’s corkscrews as many people who don’t have a lot of pracice using them do, the Rabbit makes opening a bottle very easy.
If you want exceptional design, the Anna G corkscrew is really neat. I don’t even drink wine and I want one…
Unless you have a condition that would require the ease of the Rabbit style opener then forget them completely. The whole “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less” thing guides my logic here. All it does is open bottles of wine, same as the $1 plastic one from Target. Instead use the money to purchase better wine, better glasses, a nice decanter, etc. Spend the money on something that makes a quality difference to the experience instead of just an aesthetic one.
However, in regards to the OP’s situation, if you need a quick gift people do tent to enthuse over nice corkscrews and I know a few that genuinely love the Rabbit. I just dislike them on principle.
Visual appeal, and the feel of objects in your hand are all part of “the experience”. It’s more pleasant to open a bottle of wine with what feels like a well-made, quality device, as opposed to a $1 plastic thing from Target.
Why do you recommend purchasing “better glasses” or a “nice decanter” if you follow this principle? Surely neither of those has any affect on the taste of the wine. Chemically, the wine won’t know the difference between the el-cheapo glasses at Target and something more expensive. The only reason to buy a nice set of wine glasses is the same as the reason to buy a nice wine opener: it makes the overall experience more pleasant.
Normally, I’d agree with you. In this particular case, though, it’s really well made. It’s also really good with dry, brittle corks. Of the 30 or so* corkscews I own, it’s maybe my thrd or fourth favourite.
Then maybe I need you to come over and show me how to get them off the corkscrew without a fight once they are out of the bottle. The plastic corks we’ve tried it on don’t want to come off once they are out of the bottle - it’s like the plastic conforms to it and doesn’t want to let go (WD-40 has crossed my mind, but somehow that just seems wrong ;)). It is harder to drive it through those corks in the first place too. So if the point is to make getting the cork out easier, and I believe it is with the Rabbit, then I can’t say it does the job with those kind of corks. We have the original Rabbit, too, not a cheap knockoff.
That said, though, if you what you want for your friend is to look cool opening a bottle Absolute, then for sure, the Laguioles is the way to go. 
Second. These are by far the easiest to use of all the brands suggested. But have a backup if you run out of CO2.
Ok, I’ll concede the visual and tactile portion of using a quality tool. You’re absolutely right. I’m sticking to my guns however with the other two items. The correct bowl shape on a glass (not sticking your nose in a sour smelling chardonnay for example can improve the taste) and proper decantation of some reds (adding valuable oxygen and removing sediment) can enhance the overall experience immensely.
All that aside, the Rabbit came up in your thread and I took it as an oppertunity to Rabbit bash. In hindsight it seems overly snarky for an advice thread, and may constitute thread shitting on my part, so in the spirit of goodwill, try here for lots of good wine and alcohol related gift ideas.
I like my rabbit style wine opener, which I got at Brookstone (yep! at that point it was the easiest place to walk in and buy one for cheap off the shelf). It makes opening a bottle VERY easy. I’ve fought plenty a cork, and just don’t enjoy it. But it is sort of heavy and can be sort of awkward to get used to.
The important thing is that you get a wine opener that is easy to use - and as easy to use when you open the second or third bottle that evening as when you opened the first. The CO2 thing looks really cool and easy, and the Laguioles are reallly classy, but I can’t use something like that after the first bottle - I lack the coordination required.