It better be good wine, is all I have to say.

Speaking as a former fine-dining waiter who opened countless bottles of wine, you should always have one of those handy.

But you should keep in reserve an Ah-So cork puller for the occasions when the cork fragments. (Usually because it's dried from incorrect storage.)

The trick in opening wine with one of those waiter's (or bartender's) corkscrews (we called it a "wine tool"), and in general, is to take it nice and slow.

Use the included knife blade to cut the leaded seal from around the lip of the wine bottle.

Use your weaker hand to wrap around the lip of the bottle and the tool's corkscrew, holding it so that it's stable and the forces are more even, then very slowly leverage the cork up a bit. Then move the leveraging grips (metal, avoiding chipping the glass is one reason to go slowly) to the opposite side of the bottle's lip, and continue from there. The tool will pull the cork at an angle from the bottle, aside from pulling it out, and moving the anchor point once or twice evens the stress on the cork and, in aggregate, pulls it more straightly up.

If you've got a cork that starts to fragment (usually because it's dry), don't remove the corkscrew and try again. That way madness lies. The only thing you can do, if you've any hope of extracting the cork with this tool at all, is to go even more slowly in removing the cork. Also, grip it more strongly with your weaker hand, limiting how much it wiggles (and further fragments the cork). Unless the cork is badly fragmented, doing this will usually succeed. Being impatient is the enemy to good cork removal.

If the cork framgments so badly that either a) you are not going to be able to remove the cork at all; or b) removing the cork will result in cork fragments floating in the wine (a definite faux pas), then it's time to use the Ah-So.

Use the pointed, slightly curved blad of the tool to insert it into most solid side of the cork. Jimmie that down until the other blade is ready and in position for insertion. Make sure the blades are as close to being exactly opposite from each other as possible. Also, I should have mentioned, that a badly fragmented cork may require some forethought onto exactly how you want the two blades of the tool to bracket the cork. One strategy would be to bracket the more fragmented portions, thus pressing them into the cork and keeping further fragmentation to a minumum. Another strategy would be to bracket the most solid portion of the cork between the two blades. YMMV.

Once the blades are inserted, "walk" the blades further down the sides of the bottle along the cork. By "walk", what I mean is that holding the handle of the toll, slightly rotate the handle (loooking on perpendicular to the plane of the handle) clockwise and then counterclockwise, forcing each blade down into the bottle at a time. Once the blades are both just past the bottom of the cork, then extracting the cork is easy by twisting the handle and slightly pulling, spiraling the cork out of the bottle.

Once removed, use a pre-prepared cloth napkin to wipe the lip of the bottle, removing any cork fragments or anything else, for that matter.

Corks are presented for the purposes of a) checking that the cork is moist and the bottle (especially if red) has been properly stored, and b) the fragrance can indicate if the wine is in satisfactory condition.

A red wine should be left to breathe for ten minutes or so.

Proper pouring technique is to hold the wine bottle in your right hand, with your hand midway down the bottle and on the underside of the bottle. Poise the lip of the bottle just over the edge of the wineglass, but not touching it, and as you pour, twist your hand so that at the end of the pour your hand is at holding the bottle from above. At the last moments of the pout, slightly remove the bottle up and away from the wine glass. The twist, aside from looking nice, also means that the last of the pour will be along the relatively dry portion of the bottle's lip, reducing drips as you move the bottle away from the wineglass.

You should pour from the right of the guest (as so should you serve--pick up from the left), and you should never, ever pick up a glass and hold it as you pour. Argh. You may move the wineglass closer to your position, or away from an awkward obstacle, if necessary. If you must do this, do it discreetly.

You may choose to whom, and how, to present an initial tasting as you like.

As a host, following these pouring instructions are as useful and atmospheric in the home as in a restaurant.

Oh.

My.

God.

"kmellis releases new book entitled, 'How to Get the Cork Out.' News at eleven."

Just trying to be helpful. And comprehensive. And, um, pedantic.

Nothing wrong with pedantic. I learned a lot from that comment. Thanks!

More neat tips I recently picked up (and like) are: when drinking reds, put the bottle in the fridge about 10 minutes before opening. It brings out the fruity flavors. For whites, take it out of the fridge 10 minutes before opening.

My favorite wine opening story: We are at a diner in Long Island that does not serve wine, yet we have a bottle with us. Would it be all right, we ask, to have this wine here? I'll ask the owner says the waiter. The owner comes: of course, he says. We don't have an opener, we say. Do you? No. But don't worry, give me that bottle, I'll get it open for you, my pleasure. He disappears to the back with the bottle. He returns with the bottle open, but his white shirt is almost completely covered with a dramatic red stain that looks like a bloody bomb went off.