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When I started drinking wine, I was horrified. Instead of being able to get at my Talent Juice with a few quick twists of the wrist, as I could do with all of my favorite alcohols (vodka, tequila, Mad Dog 20/20), I somehow had to get a cork out of the bottle? Who uses corks? Pirates? Even worse, I discovered that this hunk of dead tree stuck between me and the magical liquid that will make me forget all of my problems (and give me some new ones) required a special tool for its removal. That this tool does not naturally occur anywhere on the human body merely adds injury to insult.

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So what kind tool would I use? There are a lot of options in the cork-removal industry (or the CRI, as I like to call it):

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But there’s only one kind of wine opener you should be using. Seriously. It’s cheap, it’s easy, it doesn’t break, and you’ll find it’s the tool of choice for waiters from the fanciest restaurants to the cheapest.

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The humble wine key.

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It’s got a little blade to cut off the foil, and a corkscrew.

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Trust me, you don’t need anything besides this.

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A lot of people are reluctant to embrace the simple utilitarian beauty of the wine key because they’re not quite sure to use it. Here’s a quick instructional video that gets the basics across, but basically you cut the foil, insert the corkscrew, then brace the little toothed metal hinged piece on the front against the lip of the bottle and lever the cork out. If I can do it, while salivating and ranting incoherently as I try to get at my wine, then anyone can do it.

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