It slices *and* opens wine

October 7, 2018 11:15 AM

I'm looking for a folding tool that's a combination of a waiter's friend corkscrew with a pocketknife with a 4"+ straight blade. I've searched online and come up empty, does anyone make this?

Picture this. You're in Europe and you've just gone to the shops to buy some sausage, some cheese, some bread, some fruit, and a great bottle of wine. All you need for a meal! The only tools you need to enjoy this bounty are a knife to cut the food and a corkscrew to open the wine. So... what do you use?

I'm using a basic folding Swiss Army Knife for now but it only has a corkscrew worm that requires you pull the cork straight out with brute force: not easy and can end in cork dust disaster. I want something more like a waiter's friend (aka sommelier knife, wine key), something that has a double-action pull to get leverage on the cork. There are a lot of wine keys that have a tiny little curved blade on the back for cutting foil capsules. I want something with a proper pocket knife straight blade instead, ideally 4" or so.

I think the geometry of a wine key would easily allow for a full blade to run along the length of the back of it. But I can't find one for sale. Any ideas?

Alternate suggestions for a good tool for travel that pulls corks easily and can slice sausage are also welcome. I want something that can live in my suitcase.

posted by Nelson to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

Well if you're in France, the answer is the Opinel No10 Corkscrew. It does only have the direct-pull type of corkscrew though, but they're really not a problem as long as you take care. I don't think I've had an issue with mine in 20 years.
posted by pipeski at 11:35 AM on October 7, 2018

I think you might be satisfied with an Opinel corkscrew. It's not a levering wine opener, but it does the job fine and makes a nice cheese/sausage knife.
posted by jellywerker at 11:36 AM on October 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If you can find a used Leatherman Flair -- it was discontinued a while back -- it has all you want. Not elegant, but does the job.

Spendier and more elegant would be a Laguiole-style knife, but the forms are either long-blade and force-pull corkscrew or sommelier with 5cm foil cutter. And this Peugeot Ixon knife fits, but has mixed reviews.
posted by holgate at 12:52 PM on October 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

That is called a sommelier tool.
posted by kerf at 3:42 PM on October 7, 2018

I’m sorry, I wasn’t reading closely enough. I think the Opinel is your best bet.
posted by kerf at 4:08 PM on October 7, 2018

Best answer: The Leatherman Juice CS4 and XE6 have blades and corkscrews with assists (the bottle opener doubles as one). The assists are easily bent if you're not careful, but it does have both tools you were looking for. I don't know if they make them with blades as long as you want, I had a CS4 and the blade was less than 4 inches long. If the assist does get bent, it should be covered under the warranty, which is pretty good. (Unless you've accidentally bent a friend of a friend's bottle opener/assist and close it and hand it back and pretend it wasn't you and feel guilty about it for years afterward, in which case you never know if they got it fixed, but it did teach me to be careful with the tool on my own CS4.)
posted by Hactar at 5:09 PM on October 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the help; that Peugeot Ixon and the Leathermen Juice tools have the combo I want. I also asked on Twitter someone suggested the Victorinox Wine Master which is pretty much exactly at what I want albeit at $150.
posted by Nelson at 11:33 PM on October 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

If I'm remembering my old Wenger Swiss Army knife correctly, one of the screwdriver blades included a crown-seal bottle opener, and the way it was positioned meant that when half-unfolded it could operate as a fulcrum for the corkscrew in much the same way as the hinged part of a sommelier's knife. Are you sure your existing Swiss Army knife doesn't share this cunning bit of design?
posted by flabdablet at 3:18 AM on October 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ooh yes - get the wine master!
posted by oceanjesse at 6:08 AM on October 8, 2018

All of the Leatherman Juice tools from the very first have the fulcrum assist, but their blades are on the short side for what you want.
posted by scruss at 9:41 AM on October 8, 2018

I have a Laguiole that I got on eBay for about $30 a few years ago. I love the little bee on the back side of it.

It's very similar to this one.
posted by bendy at 8:03 PM on October 8, 2018