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★★★★★ 5
Best on the market!
I have tried three other brands of electric cork pullers. The fact that I now invested in a fourth probably telegraphs what this review is all about: this Vinabon device is great, hands down winner in the electric cork puller sweepstakes!
First, its motor is more powerful. Some winemakers are employing corks that fit pretty tightly, and the other brands I used would occasionally be unable to remove the cork. The screw would simply stop turning, without ay way of resuming. Advantage: the bottle.
Second, it is small, about half the size of the others, leaving a small footprint on the counter.
Third, it lasts much longer on a single charge. It doesn't sit in a cradle, because it doesn't need to. Assuming you open 10 to 20 bottles a week, you will be able to go two weeks without needing to plug the charging cable in, and a full charge does not take long. 4 vertical lights on the cylinder tell you how much of a charge remains.
Fourth, you simply press and release the start button and maintain gentle pressure on the bottle while the device descends into the cork and removes it. As soon as you remove the device from the bottle, it immediately begins to eject the cork. All with that one touch of the button!
Fifth, if you encounter a particularly tight cork, the device will stop, whereupon you push the button again and it continues. A couple of synthetic corks required me to restart 3 for 4 times, but it ultimately conquered them all!
That leaves only one issue: a failed cork that breaks during the removal process, because the screw cannot engage the cork enough to remove it without it breaking. To my knowledge, the only solutions to this, with any cork puller, are to resort to an Ah So, or if that cannot do it, just shove the cork down into the bottle, and drink the entire bottle in one evening.
Truth to tell, I have, myself, actually enjoyed that latter remedial step, especially with a larger format bottle on an evening when I am dining alone.
I cannot yet report on the ultimate problem that seems to vex all electric cork pullers I have owned: If the cork disintegrates within the cylinder during removal, how do you get the remains out? I threw my last cork puller away because I could not remove the cork detritus stuck in the cylinder, rendering the device useless thereafter.
If there is a solution to that, I would not be surprised to find that this unit already handles the problem.
If BMW were to ever make an electric cork puller, I expect it would be much like this one.
t costs almost twice as much as the others I have owned, but you get what you pay for. After all, you can buy a small fleet of Yugo's for the price of a BMW.
Bravo, Vinabon! I
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Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2024
