The Home Glass

I’m speaking, of course, of Metrokane’s “Rabbit” corkscrew, which many of my friends swear by, and which my husband loves to hate. (I think for him this product goes firmly in the category of fussy wine gadgets that are unnecessarily fancier than the simple tools he uses at work.)

I was thrilled when we received the Rabbit as a wedding gift, as I’d been pinching myself on Peter’s old-school wing corkscrew for months. The Rabbit wasn’t perfect (common complaints include its short lifespan and incompatibility with synthetic corks and certain bottle styles), but it was certainly easier on my hands—until it died (from overuse?) about a year in.

Enter the Torkscrew, a new corkscrew hybrid I recently had the opportunity to sample. The manufacturer, BellaSvago, is billing the Torkscrew primarily as an opener for screw-cap bottles, but it also functions as a conventional handheld ‘sommelier knife’ corkscrew with a foil cutter and beer-bottle opener—and it features a magnet to keep it handy on your fridge. This last feature prompted Peter’s first complaint: it failed as a beer opener, he said, because of the distance between the lever used to remove the cap and your hand. The large rubber magnet-cum-screwcap gripper that is the Torkscrew’s claim to fame gets in the way. As for its screwcap capabilities, I found it easier to simply unscrew the cap by hand.

But as a plain-old handheld corkscrew, the Torkscrew is my new favorite. I can’t quite explain why it works for me when most handhelds have me attempting to revive my dead Rabbit out of frustration, but one theory might be its size. That same bulky magnet/screwcap gripper that ruined the beer-opening experience for Peter is actually the perfect size for gripping while twisting out a cork—especially if your hand is, say, smallish.

In fact, I think the BellaSvago folks—who are pushing the idea that fine-dining establishments need the Torkscrew to “fancy up” the service of screwcap wines—might have this all wrong. Stop marketing your project to fusty restaurateurs, and instead start selling it as the Corkscrew for Women. Hell, the timing’s right—you could call it the Sex and the City corkscrew! It’s lightweight, it’s cute, and with six colors to choose from, you can get one that matches your iPod.