Cork off vin

[David W.E. Roberts]

Ou`tre´ Adj. 1. outre - conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual; "restaurants of bizarre design--one like a hat, another like a rabbit"; "famed for his eccentric spelling"; "a freakish combination of styles"; "his off-the-wall antics"; "the outlandish clothes of teenagers"; "outre and affected stage antics" bizarre, eccentric, off-the-wall, outlandish, freaky, flaky, freakish unconventional - not conventional or conformist; "unconventional life styles"

Hmmm...never thought of myself as 'conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual'. [Quiet in the back, there!!!] I carry a backpackers version of the Swiss Army Knife around with me most of the time because (a) It has a corkscrew (b) It has scissors (I have a tendency to break nails) (c) It has a cross-head screwdriver, a pair of pliers and some tweezers and with it I can disassemble and repair most PCs. [Very useful when taking the kids to Uni and setting up their PCs for them] (d) Oh, and it has a bottle opener for those non-can containerised beer moments (e) When walking and/or camping it is the kind of thing you should really have in case of emergency. [Which is admittedly normally a beer or wine container which needs opening] (f) Amazingly useful for opening modern plastic packaging which seems designed to deny you access to most things you purchase. (g) On holiday abroad you can use it when you realise that the entire contents of the kitchen drawer in your self catering holiday home is less functional than 30% of your Swiss Army Knife.....

Probably not de rigeur at swankier cocktail parties, dahling, but for someone involved in DIY a very useful tool :-)

The man of unconvential life styles (I wish)

Dave R

[John]

No, have you tried getting two fork handles into the neck of a bottle and 'pinching' the cork?

John

[Mary Fisher]

[Mary Fisher]

Sorry for empty post.

Surely everyone on a DIY group knows?

Yes, removing the cork is part of the ritual of wine drinking wherever you drink it - if it's half decent wine that is.

We drink a lot of Australian and other New World wines, far more than European ones, all have corks. Sadly, there's a trend towards plastic 'corks', I know why and it has to come and there's nothing wrong with anything about them. And yet ...

I also begrudge all that energy going into glass bottles. But I hope their general use lasts me out.

By the way, you can get French wine in cans.

[IMM]

Most wine bought is only designed to last around a year or two. It is intended for immediate consumption. The better wines do improve if you decant and let it breathe over a day. Having screw tops is the best method for these wines. The pubic are against screw tops as they perceive the wine to be cheap and nasty, so the best compromise is the plastic cork. The wines you lay down need a cork as the cork breathes.

[Andy Hall]

A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines. This is a pity as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the Australian palate but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.

Black Stump Bordeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good Sydney Syrup can rank with any of the world's best sugary wines.

Château Blue, too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn.

Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is 'beware'. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.

Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Real emetic fans will also go for a Hobart Muddy, and a prize winning Cuivre Reserve Château Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga, which has a bouquet like an aborigine's armpit.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Mary Fisher]

Is that any different from any man's armpit?

Mary

[Andy Hall]

I wouldn't know, Mary.......

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[PoP]

Just in case anyone missed the news - The Two Ronnies have agreed to get back together for one more show.

Could it be this coming Christmas I wonder?

PoP

[Bob Eager]

The gender of the aborigine was not specified...