I can think of a few reasons. You might be fishing in a boat a long way offshore and no-one remembered to bring a corkscrew. Or you may just want to impress others.

No doubt there are other prosaic reasons to use an alternative method. I’ve certainly used a wire coat-hanger in my more desperate youth. Most importantly, these three methods are fun.

Shock treatment – AKA the shoe method

Smack its bottom to make it cough up its cork. There are many YouTube videos of these techniques. Here’s one above.

Hold your bottle horizontally in one hand, and, holding your shoe by the front half, strike the base of the bottle with the flat heel. If you hit it hard enough, and squarely, the force will gradually push the cork out. Repeated blows will be needed.

If this fails, use the brick wall method. Place the base of the bottle inside the heel part of the shoe. Holding the bottle horizontally, and securely, bang the bottle squarely against a brick or stone wall using the shoe heel as a cushion. This is even more effective than the slapping method.

Tip: remove the capsule first!

Port tongs Flickr

Port tongs

Use port tongs to open a very old bottle.

Very old wines have frail, crumbly old corks. Portuguese vintage port has a very long lifespan, which means the cork is often impossible to remove in one piece – and the bottle has a neck-shape that can make extraction of a frail cork even trickier.

Port tongs completely bypass the need to extract the cork. You simply break the neck off the bottle and voilà! Instant access to pristine wine.

The jaws of the port tongs are heated red-hot in a fire, then clamped onto the bottleneck just below the cork. Usually, the glass will immediately crack and the top of the neck will fall off, cork still in situ. Sometimes, you might need to apply a wet tea-towel and gently encourage the glass to snap. If you take care, there will be no fragments – in the wine or in your hands!

Champagne sabrage opening. Champagne Booking website

Sabrage

To open a sparkling wine with a sword or sabre.

Like the port tongs above, this traditional Champagne technique bypasses the need to extract the cork. It only works with sparkling wines because it relies on the bottle’s internal pressure.

Very carefully, and ideally wearing gloves and eye protection, and taking care to point the bottle well away from yourself and others, you quickly slide the blunt edge of the sabre down the neck of the bottle so that it strikes the bottle’s lip, with or without the cage still intact, sharply. If executed correctly, it results in the glass breaking in a neat ring around the bottle lip, without splintering, and the gas pressure expels the top of the bottle-neck complete with cork and cage, for several metres. Pre-chill the bottle to minimise frothing and loss of wine.
Again, there are YouTube videos of this.

Special blunt sabres are available, especially for this purpose. It’s a great party trick.

Here are three that I’ve found recently. The Didgeridoonas is the one that I can vouch for, but the others also seem worthwhile.

Didgeridoonas Two Cool wine cooler. Cape Woolamai website

Didgeridoonas Two Cool wine cooler

Capacity: two 750ml bottles. Insulation is 100% Australian wool, the outer skin is Australian oilskin, which keeps the rain out and makes it easy to keep clean. They claim it keeps whites chilled and reds at room temperature for 24 hours. It looks good, and it’s very Aussie.

Price: AUD $54.95, shipping AUD $9.90 from DadShop website and Didgeridoonas website.

Karlstert Premium 3-bottle carrier. Kogan.com website

Karlstert Premium 3-bottle carrier

Capacity: three 750ml bottles. Made from 600D polyester for durability. Padded thermal lining for insulation. Padded divider to keep bottles apart. Dual zippers for easy opening. Front pocket for extra storage. Removable shoulder strap for ease of handling.

Price: AUD $49.95 from the Kogan website.

Overboard Dry Ice Cooler Bag 15L. Overboard website

Overboard Dry Ice Cooler Bag 15L

Capacity: 12 x 330ml cans when one-third filled with ice. Would hold two or even three 750ml bottles. Insulation is claimed to keep drinks cold for 24 hours. They claim it floats on water (if properly sealed) even when fully packed – hence it’s well suited to boating and other activities involving water. Tough PVC tarpaulin. Simple roll-up sealing system: no zips to jam or break.

Price: AUD $89.95 from the Overboard website.

This dish which is surrounded with so much mystique is really just a simple matter of gently combining a flavoured sauce – cheese, strawberry, salmon, whatever – with stiffly beaten egg whites, baking it undisturbed and serving it promptly. Mess with that formula by opening the oven door for a quick peek or faffing with the garnish before serving and doom is inevitable. This type of soufflé was invented in the late 18^th century and was mentioned in Louis Ude’s The French Cook in 1813 as promising ‘a new method of giving good and extremely cheap fashionable suppers at routs and soirées.’

Franca Brasserie Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Franca Brasserie

If you hate the way dining out has lost its sense of occasion and long for a venue that justifies dressing up then this glam addition to the Potts Point dining scene could be for you. Sure you’ll be admitted, even welcomed, in crumpled linen and sneakers but you’ll feel right at home sliding into a green velvet banquette in something plucked from the smart end of the wardrobe. You’ll also coordinate with the posh passionfruit soufflé with almond craquelin and popcorn ice cream (AUD $18), a delicious exercise in textural mastery.

Address: 81 Macleay Street, Potts Point, Sydney. Telephone: +61 2 9167 2921

Felix Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Felix

Little wonder this most classic of French bistros should have not one, but two soufflés on its menu – a Gruyère one for entree (AUD $23) and a mandarin and lime one (AUD $22) for dessert. The nutty cheese one is the more serviceable, but equally good, twice-cooked variety but we were here for the traditionally executed dessert one. Naturally, for this you must wait because it won’t wait for you. The tightrope walk between citrus tang and sweetness is as successful with the soufflé as it is with the goat cheese crème fraîche sorbet on the side and the lime notes in the Loire Coteaux du Layon made with botrytised chenin blanc (AUD $18/170).

Address: 2 Ash Street, Sydney. Telephone: +61 2 9114 7303

Regatta Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Regatta Rose Bay

You might detect the fragrance of the passionfruit soufflé (AUD $18) just before it lands in its little copper saucepan, a ball of luxurious ice cream rippled with white chocolate its simple accompaniment. Yes of course soufflés are meant to be light but this one is almost, literally, inhalable it’s so full of air. It’s astonishing it manages to carry the flavour so well. By all means, engage with the sommelier but as his knowledge of the dessert wines was theoretical, the advice faltered. The soufflé needs something sweeter than the 2016 Pressing Matters R69 Riesling.

Address: 594 New South Head Road, Rose Bay. Telephone: +61 2 9327 6561

For our purposes, we’re calling porchetta the stuffed, rolled belly and loin of this “king of animals” which is more about celebration than inventiveness borne of peasant frugality. That said there’s a popular street food incarnation stuffed into panini and sold from carts. Traditionally though, according to Gillian Riley’s Oxford Companion to Italian Food, it’s a whole boned and roasted young pig cooked with herbs. Or if you roll other meat or poultry around a herb stuffing then roast it you’re cooking it ‘al porchetta’.

Lucio’s Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Lucio’s

Sometimes you don’t want your Italian meal to be a victim of wheel re-invention. Sometimes you want your waiters flirty but informed, your table linen heavy and your cooks simply good at what they do. It’s business as usual at this artistically adorned Paddington stalwart, which is why it has an army of loyal locals keeping it going when so many other high-end places have failed. Porchetta alla Romana (AUD $48) is spot on with its tender, herb spiked meat and crisp, salty crackling. Tangy red cabbage, charred onion and green apple work a treat with the pork, as does a ballsy San Marzano Negroamaro (AUD $15/$58).

Address: 47 Windsor Street, Paddington. Telephone: +61 2 9380 5996

Osteria Coogee Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Osteria Coogee

Lucky Coogee having this appealing casual eatery opening just back from the beach last May. The headily herby porchetta (AUD $38) is a thick scroll of juicy, fatty meat with crackling charred, blistered and begging to be peeled away and scoffed. It’s only available on Sundays until sold out, so get in early and try it with a zesty Terre di Chiete Niro Pecorino 2016 (AUD $13/$33/$66). Order almost anything else from the loosely-structured sharing menu, like the octopus with capers or the porcini gnocchi and settle in for a good time. 

Address: 31 Alfreda Street, Coogee. Telephone: +61 2 9665 6797

Friggitoria Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Friggitoria

Does shoving a few slices of pork inside a bread roll (AUD $12) make the bendy crackling and dry meat any easier to bear? Does a mountain of chips help? Maybe, but only if you’re starving. Order it with a salad (AUD $19) and it’s very dreary indeed. It’s a street food place so it seems churlish to complain about eating out of a cardboard box, but that and the plywood cutlery don’t add anything to the experience. Maybe the lasagne, arancini or meatballs were better. There’s something getting this place good online reviews.

Address: 6/12 Bayswater Road, Potts Point. Telephone: +61 416 066 352

Carménère grapes Heathcote Wine Region

Carménère

Carménère is an old variety from the Gironde region in south-west France, where it was once among the red Bordeaux blending varieties, and widely planted. It’s seldom seen there today. After the phylloxera invasion of the 1870s it was not replanted, the reason being its poor fruit-set and unreliable yields. As Robinson, Harding and Vouillamoz (Wine Grapes, 2012, Harper Collins) report, France had just 21 hectares in 2008.

It was exported to Chile where for a long time it was confused with merlot, but since its identity has been clearly established its popularity has strengthened. Chile recorded zero carménère in 1996 (before it was differentiated from merlot) to more than 7,000 hectares in 2006. In the last 20 years, Chile has made carménère its signature grape.

The Luis Felipe Edwards Carmenère 2018 from Valle Central in Chile, with its bright purple-red hue and attractive bouquet of fresh tobacco and sweet mulberry, it has a definite Chilean identity. Intense and medium-bodied, it has slightly grainy tannins but basically good structure. The finish is long, firm and dry, without any of the green tannin astringency that is a risk in carménère. A great introduction to the variety. (AUD $7 from Aldi stores)

The best wine I’ve tasted recently incorporating carménère is the Ventisquero Vertice 2013 – an outstanding carménère shiraz blend made with the help of Australia’s John Duval as consultant.

Arneis grapes Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia

Arneis

Piedmont is infinitely more famous for red wines than white, and arneis had virtually disappeared by the early 1970s, according to Wine Grapes. Only Vietti and Bruno Giacosa were still bottling it. It was saved by the general revival in Piedmontese white wines that began in the 1980s, and there were 745 hectares in the 2000 census. The best wines are labelled Roero Arneis DOC.

The wine is generally unwooded, medium to full-bodied, subtly pear-scented and sometimes low in acidity – so is best drunk early.

The Bird in Hand Adelaide Hills Arneis has excelled in recent vintages, and the 2017 won a silver medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards in 2018.

It’s palish yellow colour, with an intense herb, citrus and estery bouquet and a fruity, soft, seamlessly-textured palate, with lots of flavour but also restraint and finesse. It’s tremendously juicy and seductive, with more fruit, flavour and charm than most arneis. (AUD $32)

See also:

• Australia: Holm Oak, Tertini, Pizzini, Dal Zotto, Port Phillip Estate, Rowlee.
• Italy: Vietti, Cordero de Montezemolo, Bruno Giacosa, Ceretto.

Viognier grapes Clonakilla Wines. Photographer: David Reist

Viognier

As Wine Grapes reports, viognier was ‘almost on the point of extinction’ in the late 1960s, because there were only 14 hectares in the world – all of them in France. It was in decline because of low yields and susceptibility to poor fruit-set. Now it’s grown in virtually every region around the world, including 4,395 hectares in France (2009 figures). The outside world discovered its distinctive characteristics – apricot, honeysuckle, May blossom, gingerbread – which became known and appreciated from the south of France to the USA and Australia.

The By Farr Viognier 2018 from Geelong shows aromas of apricot, mixed spices and chamomile, with the merest suggestion of honey starting to emerge. It’s barrel-fermented but oak is invisible. Delicate, restrained and lighter than usual for this grape, with refreshing acidity. A lovely, restrained style of viognier. (AUD $74)

Also see Clonakilla, Yarra Yering and Yalumba.

Because they flourish in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic the Italians really know how to bring out the best in them, techniques that work just as well on the local stuff. They’re relatively sustainable and the only good thing about climate change is a recent study suggesting they’ll flourish as the oceans warm up. So tuck in!

La Favola Stephanie Clifford-Smith

La Favola

People mostly come to this modern timber and tile place for the pasta but the calamari (AUD $19) is offered as a welcome warm-up act. Lightly coated rings and a few random tentacles are perfectly salted and need nothing more than their lemon cheek squeeze and a swipe through a barely garlicky aioli. You wouldn’t want to miss the freestyle pasta menu though where you choose from fusilli, fettuccini, paccheri etc and a range of sauces. We can vouch for the spaghetti carbonara made the way it should be, without cream – just egg yolks, guanciale and parmesan. 

Address: 170 King Street, Newtown. Telephone: +61 2 8021 0002

Rosetta Trattoria Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Rosetta Trattoria

The suits down The Quay end of town love this place – the menu reminds them of holidays in Italy and the decor of their glitzy nightclubbing days in the 80s. There’s even a glass lift! They might take the edge off their thirst with a glass of Terre de Sant’ Alberto Prosecco from the Veneto (AUD $12) and whet the appetite with a plate of calamari fritti (AUD $32). Said cephalopod is fried to a deep gold with added crunch from deep fried parsley. The mayo is made on the robust olive oil usually reserved for salads and packs a very rich punch. The lemon balances that well and with a bit of extra salt on the seafood, they’re still living la dolce vita.

Address: 118 Harrington Street, The Rocks. Telephone: +61 2 8099 7089

La Rosa The Strand Stephanie Clifford-Smith

La Rosa The Strand

Mood lighting and proper European hospitality. This humming osteria in the elegant Strand Arcade is a magnet to lovers of all things Roman. So maybe the tapioca in the light batter coating the frittura di calamari (AUD $26.20) isn’t exactly Roman but it really works on the teeny rings and keeps the glutards happy. Getting the same treatment as the seafood are saltbush leaves (not Roman) and slender zucchini batons (Roman!). We love the anchovy mayo on the side for its visible chunks of the oily salty fish. It’s next level good.

Address: Shop 133/193 Pitt Street, Sydney. Telephone: +61 2 9223 1674

After I showed initial interest in the fermented juice of the grape, my parents gave me Max Lake’s Hunter Winemakers as a present. It was a rather odd choice of book, a specialised work on a region of which I’d had no experience, but the writing was so evocative, it sucked me straight in.

Next birthday I was given Hugh Johnson’s The World Atlas of Wine – the original edition, if I remember correctly – and that was it. I never looked back.

We may live in the digital age, but I urge anyone wanting to foster interest in wine to give books.

Here are three books that got me into wine.

Hunter Winemakers Gumtree website

Hunter Winemakers – by Max Lake

Dr Lake was a Sydney hand surgeon who threw in surgery for winemaking and started Lake’s Folly, the first boutique winery in the Hunter. He was also a superb writer, his toolkit including a wonderful economy with words that many writers could learn from, and a colourful vocabulary. This is not Lake’s most famous book by any means, there were many, but its vignettes of life in the Hunter Valley, interviews with old-timers like Audrey Wilkinson, and insights into the life of the boutique winemaker made it sing. The wine region came to life on the page.

The World Atlas of Wine Pinterest

The World Atlas of Wine – Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson’s brainwave of using an atlas – a book of maps – to pinpoint vineyards and places, which he used as a springboard for describing the wine regions of the world, was the secret behind this book’s phenomenal success. It’s about to go into its 8th edition – to be released in October this year (with Jancis Robinson as editor/author and yours truly revising the Aussie section). It’s still a great encyclopaedia of the world of wine.

Adventures on the Wine Route. Kermit Lynch website

Adventures on the Wine Route – Kermit Lynch

My favourite wine books are those in which the author writes vividly and lovingly about colourful wine people, and in that respect, this book is a timeless classic. Penned by an American wine importer, probably guilty of ramping his own agencies, but who cares – it’s a great read.

Other books of this kind that I’ve loved are The Accidental Connoisseur by Lawrence Osborne, all of Simon Loftus’s books (The Pike In The Basement, Abe’s Sardines and Other Stories, and Puligny-Montrachet – which is soon to be re-published), and Jonathan Nossiter’s Liquid Memory.

Made like a mayonnaise with copious emulsified oil, this luxurious, fluffy addition to the meze table usually includes a bland starch such as bread or potatoes. The star ingredient, tarama, is made from the salted eggs of carp, cod or mullet. Ravaged stocks can rebuild now Greek Easter is over, taramasalata being one of the few fun parts of the Lenten diet. The Easter miracle nobody talks about is how they get something non-dairy so creamy.

10 William Street Stephanie Clifford-Smith

10 William St

The whipped bottarga and pretzel (AUD $18) has been rusted onto the menu of this weeny, crowded bar since chef Dan Pepperell was pulsing the blender and although he’s moved on, this, we hope will stay forever. A warm seed encrusted knot of bread is an inventive accompaniment to the pale puree. A grating of bottarga on top ramps up the umami and the bread soaks up the fine olive oil pooling in the smokey dip’s well. On a menu with plenty to divert the hungry diner, this is a must. 

Address: 10 William Street, Paddington, NSW. Telephone +61 2 9360 3310

The Apollo Restaurant Stephanie Clifford-Smith

The Apollo

There’s a lovely citrus acidity to the taramasalata (AUD $12) at this buzzing Potts Point joint. Served in a little glass pot with smokily charred flatbread its silken texture contrasts nicely with the salmon roe that pops gently against the tongue. Sit at the bar and try it with a chilled Domaine Sigalas Assyrtiko from Santorini or bring a crowd, grab a table and have it as part of ‘The Full Greek’ feasting option. 

Address: 44 Macleay Street, Potts Point, NSW. Telephone: +61 2 8354 0888

Medusa Greek Taverna Stephanie Clifford-Smith

Medusa Greek Taverna

Piped bouzouki music and the proximity to Darling Harbour might dull expectations – there’s a distinct tourist vibe here. It’s not helped by service so fast it screams a feed ’em and flip ‘em business model. But you have to love the way low expectations can also be flipped. Yes, the taramasalata (AUD $9) is the most pinkly mainstream we tried, but it was housemade and good with the grated white onion making itself known subtly in flavour and texture. Do also order the deep fried calamari with aioli – this is how it should be done.  

Address: 2 Market Street, Sydney, NSW. Telephone: +61 2 9267 0799

Wine Glass Hip Rider Holders Stand and More website

Aluminum Wine Glass Hip Rider

Stay “hands-free” at parties with the Wine Glass Hip Rider. The major flaw here is that to avoid spilling wine down your trousers you will have to stand stock still. The slightest movement will slop wine over the edge of the glass. Try it for yourself. You can fashion a Hip Rider out of a coat hanger in minutes. (USD $3.19)

The Winerack The Beer Belly website

The Winerack

This sports bra features a hidden bladder capable of holding nearly 750mls of your favourite wine. Why go the expense and trouble of getting a breast enhancement when you can slip into a Winerack. Warm wine up from cellar temperature and flatter your figure at the same time! The bra is machine washable while the bladder can be washed by hand. (USD $33.44)

Sir Perky bottle stopper Didnt Know I wanted That website

Sir Perky Bottle Stopper

Words fail me! (USD $5.99)

Baked clay amphorae were used by the ancients before modern materials were available. Small oak vessels, and new ways of using them, are also fashionable. These range from conventional barriques or hogsheads stood on their ends with the heads taken out of them, to barriques with steel doors instead of bung-holes so that skins can be easily filled and emptied, to oddly shaped oak vessels such as Pearles, which Taylors is using to great effect.

It’s easy to get distracted by the science of how or why these things work, but it’s the subtle taste differences that captivate the winemakers.

Ceramic eggs at Rocche Dei Manzoni Supplied

The ceramic egg

The egg-shaped vessel is said to enable a naturally circulating convection current which keeps the contents of the fermenter homogenous. Yangarra Estate winemaker Peter Fraser says:

“I really like the uniqueness of the wines that these vessels produce, and they do seem to showcase the varietal flavours in both our roussanne and grenache.

“The vessel seems to produce a level of purity (without oak influence) but without the boringness of stainless steel… I have noticed that fermentation behaves a little differently: the rapid early part of fermentation seems slower, and the slow tail of fermentation is faster, leading to a more even and steady fermentation. I think there is some influence of the slight ingress of oxygen, but not too much. And there are some insulating properties of the ceramic.”

Amphorae at Brash Higgins. Supplied

The amphora

This is an ancient fermenting and ageing vessel, made of baked clay. It’s beeswax-lined for hygiene and to limit oxygen transfer.

Some winemakers say the thick clay walls are a better insulator than steel, keeping a more even temperature, but it’s likely their small volume means temperatures never get too high. Brad Hickey of Brash Higgins tasted wines from Italy made in amphorae and found them challenging, but ethereal and thought-provoking.

Wanting to do something different from traditional Australian methods, he decided nine years ago to eschew oak and steel with his nero d’avola and zibibbo, and now has twenty-eight 200-litre amphorae made by an Adelaide potter from local clay. Higgins says the wax barrier eliminates oxygen transfer, and reduces evaporation and volatility. But he says the wine does contact the clay, and this has a textural effect,

“…adding warmth, vibrancy and a prettiness that I don’t taste often in steel, oak or concrete. The six months our nero d’avola and zibibbo age on skins also has a big impact on the finished wine’s flavour.”

The Pearle fermenters at Taylors Wines. Supplied

The Pearle

This fermenter, which resembles an out-of-shape barrel standing on its end, is like a petite version of a classic Bordeaux fermenting vat, but the much smaller volume gives a greater oak-surface to juice-volume ratio, allowing more oxygen into the ferment and enhancing pick-up of oak extractives. Taylors’ chief winemaker Adam Eggins ferments cabernet and shiraz in them for his The Visionary, The Pioneer and St Andrews wines. These have tight-fitting steel lids and can be used for hygienic, long-term skin contact, leading to softer tannins and enhanced texture.

Says Eggins:

“The Pearle theory is you create a drowned cap so the cap is extracted naturally and gently with less agitation. So, in theory, you keep more perfume.

“What we are seeing from extended skin contact is tannin polymerisation and natural softening, textural layering and palate enrichment – like an increase in density of fruit concentration.

“I thought the fruit would be swamped by the oak, but a few years in, it feels like the oak is encapsulating the fruit or the skin tannins are, protecting the varietal expression.”