26 July, 2010

MacGyver Sommelier



Last week my Mom, the Queen of forwards, sent all us usual suspects on her mailing list this video of some drunk Frenchman opening a bottle of wine with just a shoe...

Thank goodness this ex Girl Scout actually watched it and took copious notes. Some of us "suspects" found ourselves in a corkscrewless predicament when my cousin Melissa's three year old twins hid the all important tool from us drunks adults...

So, outside we all hustled with a shoe and the bottle of wine so as not to wake the thieving babies...

Hey, I had a huge amount of confidence going in...

I once witnessed my Uncle David remove a cork from inside and empty bottle of wine with just a linen napkin...

But, after about five minutes of us all standing around watching and growing more desperate with each attempt, I started to rethink those two day old Margarita's idling in the kitchen...

By now my Dad had begun heckling voicing his snobbishness concern about the rising temperature and growing foam of the much handled wine...

Maybe we need a harder surface? Besides, the cork may not be budging but, the door frame of the rental house is starting to sound as though it is...

I think we all eventually had the same collective thought; this bottle of Fetzer's one thing but, that bottle of Sancerre on deck is quite another. Ohhh neighhhborrrr...may we trouble you for a corkscrew?

Moral of the story? Shoes ARE good for opening a bottle of wine. They walked us next door when we threw in the towel annnd they helped stabilize the who's counting? next few bottles for opening with the proper tool...

Which, turns out, nearly everyone had in their glove compartment all along. Maybe we would have had our wits more about us if we had started this game pre Vodka tonics...


Kindness of my infamous Uncle David, of obit fame, who is researching the validity of the shoe trick with a little YouTube due diligence and a red versus white theory. I'm hoping to have his report on my desk in time for Amy's Fahrenkopf's birthday dinner. Mama needs a new party trick! XXOO

9 comments:

  1. As a college student we have tried the shoe method, the screw method, the knife method the bang the wine on the counter method. We learned the corkscrew method works best!

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  2. Lol. Good post. I'm gonna have to try this next time i want to open a wine bottle. Maybe i'll have better luck:)

    rustedwood.blogspot.com

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  3. Y'all are hilarious! That video is crazy. I'm sure we'd probably try it out after too much wine, and end up breaking the bottle. Oh, what a scene. I think I'm good just watching the video. Cheers! :)

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  4. It does work, you need a French, hand sewn, hard heeled shoe and a 3 foot wall - like a chateau or a manse for it to work properly.
    A deck shoe will not quite do the trick!
    cheers to monday!
    pve

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  5. I'm such a klutz I would never try this. My husband solved the problem by giving me a Swiss Army knife that has a corkscrew.

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  6. Hang on to those corkscrews. Nothing works better. I think you have to be in France for the shoe
    system to work. Happy summer!

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  7. I always like to watch my hubs open a bottle of champagne with a large kitchen knife, samurai style! Gets me every time!

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  8. We'll do anything for our wine!
    xoxo
    SC

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  9. What a great post! I loved it.

    I've opened a bottle on a post at a vineyard in a similar fashion (sans shoe), but all in all a corkscrew's much easier.

    XoXo!

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