Nicholas Connoisseur Collection
$29.99 (Normally $50.00) 40% off List Price
(1) The Ultimate Wine Opener - CorkPops Legacy with Extra Refill Cartridge
(1) VinOair Wine Aerator

It's Thursday! (Non-wine day)

Website

Previous offer:
12/3/11

Video showing how the cork pops works.




[MOD: Embedded the video for you]

Oh I get it. needle inserts air which aids in popping cork...
Ingenious

Here's another video/ review

Love my Cork Pops! You would normally pay this price just for the Cork Pops and a refill cartridge so it's like getting the Vinoair (which goes for $15) free.

Open a wine bottle for free...

It works, with some effort. The video makes it look real easy. Guess you need some practice to be that good. Not good on walls and trim though. :/

Pick a different hard surface.

Will make you appreciate wine bottle openers like this one.


[MOD: Fixed the video link for you.]

drunkenalien wrote:Oh I get it. needle inserts air which aids in popping cork...
Ingenious

could that cause some (albeit small amounts) cork to fall into the wine?

I have one of these and they work great! Especially with older bottles where the integrity of the cork might be in question; much easier and quicker than an Ah-So. The gaseous pressure is evenly distributed on the base of the cork, pushing the cork out; as opposed to pulling it.

These suck (edit: blow, to be more precise). The pin pushes bits of cork into the wine because it's like a syringe. Sometimes it doesn't work so you have to force the cork down a little to get it loose. It's harder with a tough cork. You have to fuss with the gas. Blech. Definitely not for post-apocalypse, where wine will be highly prized.
How hard can rabbit ears be? Can't mess with perfection.

CowboyDann wrote:could that cause some (albeit small amounts) cork to fall into the wine?

I have not yet experienced any cork particulate falling into the wine caused by this product.

jaf323 wrote:These suck (edit: blow, to be more precise). The pin pushes bits of cork into the wine because it's like a syringe. Sometimes it doesn't work so you have to force the cork down a little to get it loose. It's harder with a tough cork. You have to fuss with the gas. Blech. Definitely not for post-apocalypse, where wine will be highly prized.
How hard can rabbit ears be? Can't mess with perfection.

I will admit, I've had a problem using this with some synthetic (plastic) corks; not quite enough pressure to get it out. So I guess if you have a collection of bottles with these types of closures, this wouldn't be for you.

You are correct - it's not an issue with plastic corks (as shown in the product photo).

Coincidentally, I have been using both these products for over 2 years.
VinoAir: I like it because it also acts as a pouring spout. I think the Venturi does a better job of aerating the wine, but the mess it creates offsets it’s greater effectiveness. This is a plastic and the edge is thin and mine chipped during use, but make no difference to the functionality. Don’t know if its dishwasher safe as I just rinse it and throw it in the drawer. There was a rare bottle where the sizes did not match and I was not abe to use this. Very rare though!
CorkPops: I am on my 5th gas canister in about 3 years, Works great. I probably came across maybe one cork that I could not get open. Never had any cork particles in the wine due to using this. The foil cutting edge at the base works very well. Great party conversation topic. I prefer this to the corkscrew type systems any day. The much talked about rabbit ears are big, heavy and somewhat unwieldy. It does make a pop sound as the cork comes out. The base has a rotating thingy that slides the cork out of the needle and is a good design touch. The construction is such that it’s difficult to pierce body parts with the needle. This is one well designed product.
Some downsides, (1) if you keep it in the original box (recommended) then be careful in putting it back in the box, as sometimes the air canister get slightly depressed and the air leaks out making this ineffective (2) once you open a bottle and then later put the cork back in, then this does not work for reopening . I always end up using the good old corkscrew.

Looks like some horrible enhanced interrogation device Liam Neeson would use on a terrorist in 'Taken 3'.

Sadly, this is much less expensive elsewhere online but without the aerator. The product itself is awesome but the price is far from a "woot" in my opinion.

Cesare wrote:Nicholas Connoisseur Collection
$29.99 (Normally $50.00) 40% off List Price
(1) The Ultimate Wine Opener - CorkPops Legacy with Extra Refill Cartridge
(1) VinOair Wine Aerator

It's Thursday! (Non-wine day)

Website

Previous offer:
12/3/11

All this just to open a simple bottle of wine ? What the...

I've had one of these for years, and I absolutely love it.

I've never had cork particulate fall into the wine at all. (By contrast, any corkscrew-style opener digs into the cork and can tear it apart and drop lots of cork into the wine if the cork is older and becoming brittle.)

Every once in a great while, I'll find a bottle whose cork would rather be pushed in than punctured all the way through. So you want to keep an eye on the cork and if you see it start to sink into the bottle, immediately stop and grab a cork screw instead. (I prefer the Popper to a corkscrew for a number of reasons, but I keep a corkscrew on hand just in case a cork resists the Popper.)

Also, I bought mine when they were first invented. Apparently there must have been some injuries and/or lawsuits since then, since mine lacks the safety cage around the needle. The needle on mine is fully exposed, which makes it a wonderful home defense weapon. Break into my house, and get a nitrogen embolism.

One thing to be aware of is that you should never use this on a bottle that isn't full. If you drink some wine from a bottle and then recork it, then you have a larger-than-normal air pocket in the bottle. When you pressurize that whole area, you'll turn your bottle into a wine grenade complete with glass shrapnel. Sealed bottles only.

I live in Oklahoma and haven't had any issue being denied an order of non-wine products being sold through Wine.Woot.com (caramels, aerators, candle holders, Brandini toffee) until today (which is the first time I've tried wine.woot.com since the site overhaul). Is there a reason this product is locked out of the non-wine shipping states?

Use of the term "Connoisseur" in the name of this gas-powered gadget seems a wee bit over the top.

Wine is such an organic thing...how can we possibly be wanting to open a bottle with some powerized, pressurized, popping contraption?

To each their own, but it'll be the corkscrew for me, thank you.

tonycyndy wrote:Use of the term "Connoisseur" in the name of this gas-powered gadget seems a wee bit over the top.

Wine is such an organic thing...how can we possibly be wanting to open a bottle with some powerized, pressurized, popping contraption?

To each their own, but it'll be the corkscrew for me, thank you.

It is my understanding that the gas is plain old air. Not 100% nitrogen or cardon diovide, etc.

hiten900 wrote:It is my understanding that the gas is plain old air. Not 100% nitrogen or cardon diovide, etc.

According to the item description, it "contains R-134A" which, according to wiki, is 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane, a haloalkane refrigerant with thermodynamic properties similar to R-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane). Also according to wiki, it is considered an organic solvent, and it is used in the resistive plate chamber particle detectors in the Large Hadron Collider.

That's actually kind of cool. But I still like my corkscrew better.

rugger2141 wrote:I live in Oklahoma and haven't had any issue being denied an order of non-wine products being sold through Wine.Woot.com (caramels, aerators, candle holders, Brandini toffee) until today (which is the first time I've tried wine.woot.com since the site overhaul). Is there a reason this product is locked out of the non-wine shipping states?

Sounds like a great question for service@woot.com, it shouldn't be a problem as far as I know. (I may not know much.)

inkycatz wrote:Sounds like a great question for service@woot.com, it shouldn't be a problem as far as I know. (I may not know much.)

Hey, you should be okay to order - if there's a hangup, just let service@woot.com know so they can fix you up.

tonycyndy wrote:According to the item description, it "contains R-134A" which, according to wiki, is 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane, a haloalkane refrigerant with thermodynamic properties similar to R-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane). Also according to wiki, it is considered an organic solvent, and it is used in the resistive plate chamber particle detectors in the Large Hadron Collider.

That's actually kind of cool. But I still like my corkscrew better.

I stand corrected!

inkycatz wrote:Hey, you should be okay to order - if there's a hangup, just let service@woot.com know so they can fix you up.

Thanks, I sent them a message about 3pm CT about it, and never heard back :-( Hopefully I'm not the only one but I fear that's now the case as on the sales map Oklahoma, Kansas, and a bunch more states were "white" indicating few to no orders.