Opening Wine Bottles for Dummies

Cutting the capsule on a wine bottle

Perhaps the most common reason for the freelance dumbassery that our staffers run across is the writers' failure to understand a question they're supposed to be answering. Although we can understand unfamiliarity with high-energy physics (though without knowledge, why would you write...), but unfamiliarity with common, everyday tasks is more difficult to explain – though we suspect it's just garden-variety stupidity. Submitted for your consideration today is Charlotte Johnson as she fumbles her way through "How to Open a Plastic Wine Bottle Cap" for Leaf.tv (formerly eHow.com).

Charlotte, in case you haven't been keeping track, has graced these pages several times before -- this is her ninth visit. The reason we've called you all together to laugh at the work of this musician, writer and teacher (her description, not ours) is simple: as usual, she has no idea what she's talking about. That's readily apparent from her introduction:

"Some corks that are placed in wine bottles are not made out of natural cork but are made out of plastic. Using plastic corks helps to preserve cork oak trees. These synthetic corks can be less expensive for wine manufacturers, but they often are more difficult to remove from the bottle."

We find several problems with those two sentences, First, WTF are "wine manufacturers"? does she mean "vintners"? Second, many vineyards use "plastic corks" because they provide a better seal than natural cork. And third, a cork is not a "bottle cap" -- so Johnson's off on a wild goose chase to begin with.

Although she describes in excruciating detail a method for extracting the cork, Charlotte blithely skips over the actual answer to the question in her first step: "Cut and peel off the label that is covering the cork." Johnson is clearly unfamiliar with the technical name of that "label," which people who actually drink wine know as the capsule. Some brands of wine are bottled with a plastic capsule, as opposed to the more common metallic foil. It's this "cap" the OQ wanted to remove, not the cork – and Charlotte glossed over it without a second thought.

Well, OQ, all you do is use a knife or other sharp object to score the capsule just below the rim of the neck – there's often an indentation to make this easier – then pry or pull off the loosened disk of plastic. Some thicker capsules have little tab embedded in the plastic that you simply pull around the neck. If it breaks, you can always use the knife. That's what the OQ wanted to know, not detailed instructions on how to use exactly one style of corkscrew... Heck, one of Charlotte's references goes into great detail on cutting the capsule!

For yet another contribution to the stupidification of the internet and for holding forth at length on the wrong topic, we here at the Antisocial Network do hereby award to Charlotte Johnson the honor of her ninth Dumbass of the Day award. We suggest she get someone else to open the celebratory bottle of wine...

copyright © 2017-2022 scmrak

DD - WINE