Received a bottle of wine as a gift? Newbie wine lover? Let's get excited about wine! Open bottles like a pro after watching this step by step description of uncorking and enjoying a bottle of wine.

Video Transcription

Kathleen Lisson: Hi, my name is Kathleen and thank you for watching my video on how to open a bottle of wine with the waiter's corkscrew. Alright, let's get excited about wine. Now there are many different corks and several different kinds of corkscrews. The one I'm going to use tonight is called a waiter's corkscrew. It's a single lever. There are also other kinds of corkscrews. This was my old favorite until I got my waiter's corkscrew, it's a double lever corkscrew and this type of corkscrew was actually invented in Italy. But I use my single lever Waiter's Friend corkscrew because it kind of has everything that you need to open a bottle of wine, on board, all in one package. But the obvious improvement over the double lever would be this Foil Cutter right here. It also has what's called the Bottle Brush or Neck Brush and it's a two-step because there are two different parts of it which you'll see when I put this in action in a second and of course there is an all-important screw. Now there are lots of different corks and there are lots of different cork openers. This will open the majority of corks since the one cork of course that you don't need a corkscrew to open is the champagne cork. There are also two kinds of normal corks, this is a regular cork that's actually made up of the bark of the cork tree. There are also several kinds of synthetic corks that are here now. The most positive attribute of the synthetic corks is that there is no TCA or corked wine because there is no way for the bacteria to come on the synthetic closure here. I am opening a bottle of some of my favorite wine ever, it's the Dr. Frank's Rkatsiteli, this is a 2006 Vintage, 12% alcohol from Dr. Frank's Winery in the Finger Lakes and the first step you need to do is chill your wine, usually for a wine like Rkatsiteli, I put in the fridge and then I take it out about 20 minutes beforehand before I would like to serve it, kind of let it come up to just right under cellar temperature. If it's red like my other new favorite which is the Potato Barn Red, this is from Schneider Vineyards in Mattituck, New York, this Merlot type wine can come in with other red, it just goes in for 20 minutes beforehand your meal, take it out of your wine cellar and put in the fridge just to get the temperature down little bit to right about cellar temperature. First thing I do while opening a bottle wine is take a foil cutter, which is a straight serrated edged and you want to you use it to take the foil off of your wine, the blade takes the foil figures or foil cover, if you want to you can remove the rest of the foil. Then, make sure that goes back down. Now the corkscrew, it ends on an angle, so know what that angle is and put it in there in a complimentary angle, if you go straight down with a corkscrew you're going to end up not getting a very good uncorking experience. So once your cork screwer is in, it's little elbow grease, push this down through almost to the end and then this is the perfect time you use the first step, see the second step is still down here, open the cork the first way and then you push it up and you use your second step and that satisfying pop means you're about to have a great glass of wine. Remove your cork, this cork can be used to re-cork the bottled wine after you drink it. Swirl around, that beautiful Rkatsiteli aroma that I love so much, beautiful color. A great bottle of wine produced right here in the Finger Lakes and opened by me with my favorite Waiter's corkscrew. Thank you very much for watching and have a good night.