Adventures in Wine Opening

Before getting to the wine part, I need to share my excitement about buying a lamb roast.  While the cost was comparable to other decent cuts of meat at Costco, it was still a huge splurge for our grocery budget, but totally worth it in my mind.  I cut the thing in half to make two roasts.  Then each roast fed us several times,  so I really stretched out that lamb.  Sadly I took no pictures of the meals that followed.

The second half of the lamb roast does bring me to the wine adventure though.  I decided that the leftovers from the roast should be made into Shepherd's Pie.  The recipe calls for dry red wine.  I chose a bottle of Pinot Noir.  It had a cork.  I couldn't find my corkscrew.  Up until now, all wine bought to use at my house has had a screw top.  This was a problem.

I thought the problem would be solved by a quick stop at a cheap store. Turns out you shouldn't buy corkscrews at discount stores.  The one I bought was nothing like any corkscrew I've ever used before, but the directions looked easy enough.  I removed the packaging and the first thing that happened was the handle fell off.  No big deal, I could hold it in place to get the job done.

Then the glue holding the whole thing together gave out.  Ahh, now I know why this was marked down half price, in the discount store.  Now the screw is not attached to anything, and I'm holding some rather useless plastic.  Enter the Husband.

He managed to get the screw part into the cork.  Then put a bunch of effort into pulling it out.  But a screw without leverage won't budge.  I know: A hammer!!

 Trying to get the hammer lined up on the screw and bottle.

 I'm actually really nervous about wine going EVERYWHERE.

 Ta Da! Cork out of bottle.

Only one other time have I opened a bottle of wine without a proper cork removal device. It involved shoving the cork into the bottle with a wooden spoon.  It resulted in wine all over the kitchen, including the ceiling.

 Doug snapped a picture of his food.  He mixed the potatoes into the gravy.  To be fair, much of the gravy bubbled up over the potatoes while cooking.  I will be making this recipe again, and looking for a proper corkscrew in the meantime.