Imagine a sunny Sunday afternoon and you are sitting on a beach with a bottle of your favorite Cabernet Sauvignon blanc or Bordeaux Rouge. You insert your hand in your carry bag to locate the corkscrew, and you discover that you forgot to bring it along. Is your whole picnic ruined? Well, not necessarily if you know how to open a wine bottle without a cork screw. Here we explain a tried and tested method called Robinson’s Shoe Method which doesn’t damage the wine in the process of opening. (I hope you didn’t forgot to bring the glasses as well!)
Things You Need:
1. Flat sole shoe
2. Handkerchief
3. Towel
The Method To Open Your Bottle
1. Take your shoe out: I hope you are not wearing football spikes. However, if so, then it’s time for you to become George Bush Jr. Provoke someone to throw his shoe at you or it would be better if you can borrow one.
2. Fit the bottle in the inside cavity of the shoe: Any normal average size wine bottle should fit in a shoe. However, in case of an extra-wide bottle, you should use some other surface. As a precautionary measure, wrap the wine bottle in a towel at the point of contact. For the sake of this explication, we assume that bottle fits into the inside cavity of the shoe.
3. Hit the wall with the shoe: Now put the bottle gently on its bottom on the shoe’s inside sole. Hit the shoe sole on the wall with some force until some part of the cork is visible outside.
4. Wrap the handkerchief around the cork: When some part of the cork is visible outside the bottle, wrap it tightly with the handkerchief.
5. Pull the cork out with your teeth: Grab the visible part of the cork tightly between your teeth, and then apply enough force to pull it outside. Do so until it is almost open and ready to come out.
6. Pull the cork to an upright position: Hold the bottle in an upright position and pull the cork outside with your fingers. We could have pulled out the cork in the last step itself or even by just hitting the wall with force in the third step, but that could have led to spilling of the wine. That’s why we pull it out in an upright position.
7.Now the bottle is open : Now there is no cork in between acting as hindrance between you and your wine. You just opened your favorite wine bottle without cork screw.
8.Time to enjoy : Well now take out your wine glasses and enjoy the wine with your favorite food. But next time don’t forget to bring your cork screw or multipurpose Swiss army knife.
Quick Tips
1. Never hit the bottle directly on the wall even with towel wrapped around it.
2. In case the bottle doesn’t fit into the shoe, use any other object and make sure that it is soft from one side to work as a shock absorber, e.g. a book.
3. You can even hold the bottle inverted tightly between your thighs and then hit its bottom with a flat object to pull out the cork.
