Heh, that's a trick that has won me many friends over the years. Yeah, sure, you could just push the cork in, but this is more fun, and you can stopper the bottle when you're done.

Man, I needed this trick when I was in Cannes this summer. Could've impressed the socks off of everyone.

That looks like fun!
I wonder how we can combine this with the Turkey High Five

Love it, and I say that as someone who has broken two perfectly good bottle openers in as many days.

Well, it would hardly be a sober Frenchman, n'est-ce pas?

and you can stopper the bottle when you're done.

If you're at the point where you're so desperate to open the bottle that you have to use your shoe, I doubt there'd be anything left over to stopper.

Plus, wine corks almost never fit back in the bottle. This often necessitates drinking the whole bottle to ensure it doesn't spoil.

Actually, I don't have a problem getting corks to fit back in. The times I've done this has been things like being at the beach, and someone forgot the corkscrew. Nice to be able to put the cork in if it gets tipped over in the sand. Also, I've never used a shoe, but rather something like a towel to cushion the bottle.

Any more, however, I search out quality wines with screw cap closures. It's a better system, and you don't need a special tool to open it.

you could just push the cork in, but this is more fun, and you can stopper the bottle when you're done.

I saw a tool for sale in Paris, that was for the sole purpose of pulling corks out from inside a bottle of wine. It was a ring of paper-thin plastic fingers that expanded in the bottle and closed around the cork as it was pulled back up in the neck.

I regret not buying it, if only out of an appreciation for completeness.

StickyCarpet, there's actually another parlor trick for doing that with a bit of string with a knot in the end. I'm sure the engineered tool works much better.