MIU France Zinc Alloy Connoisseur Corkscrew Wine Opener
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List Price: Our Price: $20.99 You Save: $14.01 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $17.10 (click here) Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of MIU France Zinc Alloy Connoisseur Corkscrew Wine Opener
Customer Review: For the price, you can't beat it.
Summary: 4 Stars
This unit works very well, though there are some disappointing aspects that a first-time user should be aware of.
First, cycle the unit through its FULL range in order to lock the guide bushing in its lower position. This lower position is where the guide bushing needs to be for cork extraction AND cork removal. To get to the lower position you need to cycle the unit into a detent position, which will be at the end of the "free" motion range - simply add a bit more force to your cycle, and the unit falls into this critical detent.
Second, check the spring pin that is installed in the guide bushing's cross-hole; this pin needs to be inserted fully through the guide bushing AND the bushing housing (look for pin ends at both sides of the housing - mine came half installed, but the bent pin did look intentional at first glance). If your pin is not installed correctly, return the unit for an exchange, or drive the pin into its proper location if the pin is straight enough to do so.
And, third: LIGHTLY lubricate your screw with PAM, mineral oil (you do have mineral oil to treat your wood cutting boards, don't you?), or some other cooking oil; just wet a paper towel with the lube, run it down the spiral, then wipe it to a thin coating - match this lube with the factory Teflon coat, and you'll have a cork pulling spiral that will outlast your neighbor's un-lubricated unit. All corkscrews should be kept lubricated, as it greatly reduces the stresses encountered while driving a thin member into a compressed, resistive material. Non-lubricated corkscrews break, it's a fact of life. Most people, though, think the spiral breakage is just the way it is - which it is, but you can significantly delay this failure by lubricating the spiral. That squeaking you hear as you drive a corkscrew home? Yup, caused by resistance, and a sure sign that your corkscrew is being exposed to more stresses that it need be. Lubricating your spiral will also keep the synthetic cork from marring the Teflon coating; again, increasing the lifespan of the spiral.
This product got shot with a 4 rating due to the junky instructions and improperly installed pin. I caught the pin too late, and chewed up my guide bushing with the first four corks I pulled. Amazon was, as usual, plenty willing to send a replacement. Make sure you keep your spiral lubricated, and I'm rather sure you'll get plenty of life from your first one - remember the manufacturer gave you a replacement because the spiral will break, eventually.
Customer Review: Poorly made opener -- not worth the price.
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm not sure what the other reviewers are smoking, but this is one very poorly-made opener. Mine came apart after opening three bottles of wine.
I have an engineering degree, and I have owned about 5 of this style (Screwpull) of opener over the last 20 years of wine drinking -- this is my first Miu. In my opinion, this is a very poorly made opener. The manufacturing/assembly tolerances are very sloppy and the action of the opener is not smooth.
My opener failed because the cap the contains the top of the screw came off, stripping the threads. I examined the threads and they are poorly formed -- and poorly designed, with the "thread coverage" of only about 1.5 and a very loose tolerance. Think of screwing your garden hose-end onto a sprayer, but only doing 1.5 turns and you get a sense of the looseness that I mean.
The opener as a whole has the same sloppy tolerances and while it may look good from a distance (or in a small picture on Amazon's website), once you really *look* at it close up, it looks cheap and poorly made. Even the black "chassis" only looks like high-quality carbon-fiber (or whatever it is that the top models use) but in reality is somewhat soft plastic that you can bend pretty easily.
If you're at all doubting this review, please go to a good wine shop and just handle a couple different brands, paying attention to how "tight" and "smooth" the operation (action) of the various models is. The sloppier the action, the more force you need to exert to open a bottle and the more wear and tear you place on the parts. Check it out.
I don't write many reviews, but this was just such a sad product and I would feel bad if people bought this and never got to know how great this style of opener can be. I owned two Screwpull-brand models, both of which worked flawlessly for years and years, and would still be going (they may yet be) but I lost one in a divorce and the other to theft at a party (hmmm -- maybe they had a Miu?).
I have since gone through three different "cheap" ones, two were business gifts and lasted a year or so, and this latest one lasting a record-short 3 bottles. Simply amazing.
My birthday is in September and you can bet what is on my list. Now I just need a wine-lover style padlock and chain so that it doesn't disappear again.
Customer Review: Forget the cork screw!
Summary: 5 Stars
Since I began drinking wine, the biggest problem was the effort spent on getting the cork out of the bottle. With most cork screws, unless you drill it in so far as to go through the cork, and in the process getting little bits of cork in your wine, the cork will not come out of the bottle without a little extra twisting and pulling which, when drinking red wine, could have a negative effect of your clothing if spilled. Looking around in some specialty stores for "the best" wine opener, I came across one in "Williams & Sonoma" which cost $129.00. There was no way in the world I was going to pay that kind of money for a wine opener. I spotted the MIU France Zinc Alloy Wine Opener on Amazon.com which looked similar in principal to the one I had seen in the store and decided to order one. This is the best twenty dollars I ever spent. Matter of fact, I have purchased three more since then. Two as gifts and one for a sister-in-law who asked me to order one for her husband for Fathers day after she saw it in action. It is so easy to operate, my 9yr old could open a bottle of wine with it. There is no pamplet in the box giving instructions on how to use it but they give you step by step pictures on the outside of the box to show you. Included inside is a foil cutter (which I just found out how to use) and extra screws in case one breaks. It works with synthetic corks as well.
So Easy:
Just clamp the two handles around the bottle, pull the lever forward - which drills the screw in, pull the lever back, and the cork comes right out with NO addition twisting and pulling. To get the cork off the screw, repeat the process.
I highly recommend this wine opener!
Customer Review: Best corkscrew I've ever owned!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was reading through all of the other reviews and must say that I'm surprised at all the negative ones. First, I want to say that once I figured out how to use it, it has turned out to be the best corkscrew I've ever owned - and I've owned the cheap ones, the expensive ones, the fancy ones, all kinds of ones. Second, I want to address some of the negative reviews. The corkscrew does seem to be not as well balanced as it could be, so rather than leave it out or using the holder, I keep it in the same box it came in. The box has a form nest for the corkscrew so it rests snugly. Perhaps some of the negative reviewers have been storing it loose in a kitchen drawer?
The other negative comment I'd like to address is about the foil cutter. Admittedly, the instructions on the box leave something to be desired, but if you're using the foil cutter the right way, it should rip the foil right off the lip of the bottle.
It seems to me that all those negative comments about little plastic pieces coming off and screws not going through the cork and not being able to find the "sweet spot" are really about not using the product in the way that's intended. If you're using it right, the cork comes out in about 3 seconds flat.I REALLY love this corkscrew!
Added on 2/2/11: The foil cutter broke a few months back - I miss having it because I had to go back to pulling the foil off by hand or trying to cut it off with a knife or scissors. Sometimes I "cheat" and just plunge the corkscrew straight through the foil (which isn't a very good method). I have to go and look for a companion foil cutter now.
Customer Review: works easily at all stages
Summary: 5 Stars
A very easy to use corkscrew. Handles corks and those plastic corks easily. The rabbit corkscrew is nice too, but this beats the rabbit in ease of insertion, extraction, and then extraction of the cork off the corkscrew, by at least two to one. This is very important as my wife can't use a rabbit anymore, it requires too much arm strength. This one is a snap. It's also much easier than the simpler two handed corkscrew that looks like a, how do I describe it, like a jumping jack exercise when both handles go up at the same time, you know what I mean I hope, when you crank in the screw and the dual handles go up, then you pull down on the handles to remove the cork. Instead of the jumping jack one, use this one, it's a lot easier at ALL stages--insertion, extraction, cork removal from the tool. Plus I've never yet jammed a cork into the bottle, which these other tools occasionally do--oh, one can survive from that, the point is that this corkscrew does it right, and easily, from all aspects. It's built sturdily too, so it will likely last longer (better built, and also gets less stress from the user as all aspects of its operation are easier) than the others. To explain, if you use a tool and have to yank on it a lot, you know that the stress you put on it in use is not going to have it last as long as a tool that works with just a little bit of effort. This corkscrew is really good. It almost makes you want to use it too much.