15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Clever Design with a Major Drawback, November 18, 2008
This review is from: Pinzon Penguin Wine Opener Gift Set (Kitchen)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This wine opener has a clever design, and is bigger than it looks in the product description pictures. It works by turning an internal corkscrew into the cork as the lever is pressed downward, then it pulls the cork out when you raise the lever. The lever is long so that you get enough leverage to make this easy. Here's a simple pro and con description:
PRO- I loved the foil cutter; it works really well
CON- Unfortunately, this device is not to be used on synthetic corks (the instructions warn not to) so this opener is only good for use on bottles with real corks.
As more and more wine labels change over to synthetic corks, this device is destined to being a large paperweight. Too bad, because it has great looks and the concept makes cork pulling a breeze, if you have the right kind of cork.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PERFECTLY EASY, November 7, 2006
This review is from: Pinzon Penguin Wine Opener Gift Set (Kitchen)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I own several styles and more expensive corkscrews, but this one is effortless. The foil cutter takes seconds to perfectly cut, then a few more seconds and you're pouring the wine. What really impressed me was the absolute ease of removing those usually challenging synthetic hard globs. You can barely tell the pucture site, so the more creative types could use real corks for wreaths, etc. The added bonus of an extra screw and a wine saver make this product an absolute fantastic buy. If it doesn't hold up, I'll write an addendum. My experience with their other products is also of high regard.
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21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Broke on the first try!, October 21, 2008
This review is from: Pinzon Penguin Wine Opener Gift Set (Kitchen)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I received the Pinzon Penguin wine opener set today, which gave me an excuse to have some wine with dinner! Always a good thing. We picked a bottle and used the foil cutter. It's very stylish and worked nicely. Then I dug the bottle opener itself out of the box; it's in there quite tightly.
The directions are virtually non-existent, just some numbered pictures showing the steps. There are no written instructions, no warnings about synthetic corks. I put it on the bottle, squeezed, moved the lever down and up and...nothing. I looked at the "directions" and tried again. Nothing. The opener was stuck on the bottle and wouldn't come off. My husband tried, and the lever jammed. He gently pulled it off the bottle. The cork, a synthetic one, was still fully in place and the opener was broken, with something rattling inside it. The lever won't move more than an inch or two, so it's useless after one attempt.
Since you don't know until you remove the foil if the cork is real or rubber, having a wine opener that doesn't work on synthetic ones is rather pointless. More and more wineries are distributing bottles with synthetic corks to prevent rotten corks from spoiling the wine, and the bottle I was opening wasn't a cheap one. I grabbed my classic waiter's corkscrew and bing bam boom, my bottle was open. At that point, we both needed a drink!!!
I did try the wine bottle stopper and it seems to have created a vacuum seal on the bottle but I am not convinced it really sucked the air out, which is key to preventing spoilage. It's keeping a persistent fruit fly at bay and for now, that's sufficient. I'll use my VacuVin wine stopper when I want to really cork it, because after my experience with the opener, I honestly don't trust it to work properly and am not willing to risk half a bottle of wine to find out.
As a side note, the person receiving this gift set has to figure out on his or her own what the foil remover and cork stopper are, because there's absolutely nothing in the box to tell you. I'm a wine enthusiast so I knew what they were, but a novice who is choosing this item as an easy way to open and store wine would be completely in the dark.
I would recommend the rabbit-eared puller, the original that started this how-can-I-quickly-get-into-that-bottle-if-I-can't-use-a-corkscrew craze. It's worth the money and it does the job. There's no shame in not being able to use a corkscrew, but there are better options than this!
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