From muskets to the table. And before the corkscrew, how was wine stored?
Before arriving on the table, the corkscrew helped European soldiers on the battlefield. The mechanism that allows you to extract a cork was born, in practice, as a derivative of firearms technology.
The spiral found in the corkscrew was previously a small metallic spiral used by soldiers and hunters to remove unfired charges from the barrels of their weapons. mosquetes.
The evolution of this apparently modest instrument helped to consolidate one of the biggest changes in the history of wine: the generalization of the glass bottle sealed with a cork, capable of preserving and aging the drink for much longer.
The starting point is the problem that the cork solves. Wine deteriorates when exposed to too much oxygen, but it benefits from a micro-air exchange that triggers chemical reactions responsible for developing aromas and flavors over time. The challenge, for centuries, was to find a closure that prevented rapid oxidation without completely “choking” the liquid.
Before cork stoppers became common, in the 17th century, producers and traders resorted to far from perfect solutions, recalls . In ancient times, clay containers were reinforced with waterproofing substances such as beeswax, pitch and resins and covered with cloth. In some cases, olive oil was poured inside to float on top of the wine and create a barrier against the air, details the magazine. These techniques extended the life of the product, but altered the flavor.
The stopper, made from the bark of the cork oak, proved to be particularly suitable: it is elastic, adapts to the bottleneck and is porous enough to allow minimal air entry. The Romans had already realized the material’s potential for sealing clay containers, but the real revolution required another advance: the field of glass manufacturing in conditions that allowed the production of more regular and resistant bottles.
Until the 17th century, wine was mainly aged and sold in wooden barrels, a practice that was consolidated in Northern Europe and extended to wine from the traditions of beer and cider. Glass bottles existed, but they were mainly used to take the wine “from the barrel to the table”, and were covered with a loose piece of cork. As these bottles were not designed for storage, the seals did not need to be very secure and sometimes the cork would get stuck.
For decades there were essentially two ways of dealing with this, both impractical. One was to let the cork protrude, but this hampered storage and sealing effectiveness. Pushing it inwards created a better closure, but then it was necessary to cut the neck to access the wine again, using heated metal tongs. The process rendered the bottle unusable.
The solution came from a military object. Since the 1630s, an instrument with a metal spiral had been circulating in Europe, used to “fish out” material stuck in the barrel of firearms. At some point, whose authorship remains uncertain, someone realized that the same spiral could be screwed onto a cork to pull it out. An English register of 1681 It is noted as the first known written reference to the modern corkscrew.
With popularization came technical improvements. In 1795the English reverend Samuel Henshall obtained the first patent for a corkscrew design that included a horizontal disc to prevent the spiral from penetrating too far into the cork. In 1882the German Carl Wienke patented another milestone: a folding corkscrew with support and lever.
Nowadays, there are even electric versions that do almost everything from start to finish. And despite the long and funny story, the future of the corkscrew is no longer guaranteed.
A consumer report cited in the text highlights generational differences: among people aged 65 and over, 81% say they have a corkscrew, but between 18 and 24 years old the percentage drops to 27%, a trend attributed to changes in consumption habits and the convenience of bottles with screw caps.
