How to Use a Wine Corker

A floor wine corker provides extra leverage during a long corking session

Home vintners need an efficient and reliable corker to seal the fruit of their labor and preserve their wine in an airtight bottle until it is ready for tasting. Many styles of corker are available, although all are designed to fulfill the same task, which is to compress and force a cork into the neck of the bottle, creating an airtight seal. To use a corker, you place a cork in a vise-like slot, position a filled bottle of wine beneath it, and depress a handle. Better quality corkers compress the cork diameter and insert it into the bottle in one movement as the handle is pressed.

Things You'll Need

• Wine bottles Corks

Instructions

1. Choose a corker to suit your needs and budget. If you're going to be bottling a lot of wine, more than 10 12-bottle cases per year, buying a floor model for ease of use might be a good investment. A hand corker will get the job done for less expense, but it is more labor intensive. Hand corkers are good for corking two or three cases at a time (up to 36 bottles) before hand fatigue might set in. Hand corkers cost about $75. Floor models start at $150 and up.

2. Cork a bottle of wine with a hand corker by placing the cork in the slot and positioning the mechanism over the bottle.

3. Turn the handle on the compression iris to squeeze the cork.

4. Depress the insertion lever to force the compressed cork into the neck of the bottle so that the cork is flush with the lip of the bottle.

5. Cork a bottle of wine with a floor corker by inserting a fresh cork in the slot.

6. Place the filled wine bottle in the holder underneath the cork.

7. Pull down on the corker handle, which compresses the cork and drives it into the wine bottle in one motion.

Tips & Warnings

• Buy a floor corker if you plan to use cheaper synthetic corks, because these are harder to compress and hold while forcing them into wine bottles. Floor models also hold a wine bottle more securely, making it much less likely that the bottle will scoot out from under the cork, turn over and possibly break while you are trying to drive the cork into the neck.

References

• Leeners: Wine Corker Equipment