Gadget Skips the Screwy Part of Uncorking Wine

Uncorking a bottle of wine can be a romantic ritual--or a pain in the neck. For those who find the corkscrew less than user-friendly, the Kwik-Kork is coming.

Invented by a Canadian, manufactured in Portugal, the Kwik-Kork hit the big time in November when a leading French producer used it in more than 600,000 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau.

Some purists sniff at the newfangled cork, which can be pulled out without a corkscrew. But inventor David Hojnoski says the overall reaction is positive, leading to dozens of inquiries from wine producers worldwide.

Hojnoski (pronounced hi-NOS-kee) said one of Chile’s largest wine exporters and a big California winemaker will have Kwik-Kork bottles beginning this year. He said there has been keen interest in China.

In Britain, where Beaujolais Nouveau is highly popular, the Kwik-Kork received favorable news coverage and some praise in the trade magazine Packaging Week. “Given the millions of pounds invested by packaging companies in research and development, it seems amazing that nobody has designed such a contraption before,” the magazine said in a December edition.

The Kwik-Kork is produced by drilling a small hole into the center of a traditional cork and inserting a plastic sleeve. Once the cork is fitted into a bottle, a pulling device is inserted into the sleeve--with a simple tug, the cork comes out.

Hojnoski said he and his two partners initially set their sights on winning a 1.5% share of the 17 billion wine corks used by the industry annually. But he said they are now hoping to sell 500 million Kwik-Korks a year--a 3% share.

The Kwik-Kork is being pitched for use with midprice wines, bottles costing $5 to $10 that people buy to drink at home.

“It’s consumer-convenient,” Hojnoski said. “People are tired of finding cork floating around the top of their wine, or the cork pushed into the bottle.”

Jean-Pierre Durand, marketing director for the French wine producer Michel Picard, said the company decided to use Kwik-Korks as part of a drive to win over “the Coca-Cola generation”--younger drinkers who might be attracted to easy-open wine bottles for picnics and parties.

But one of France’s top wine experts belittles the Kwik-Kork.

“For me, it’s mostly a gadget,” said Alain Segelle, director of the Center for Information, Documentation and Tasting of Wines. “Frankly, it doesn’t respect the wine’s quality. It’s not a top-quality cork.”

He said the Kwik-Kork is adequate for wines meant to be drunk quickly, like Beaujolais Nouveau, but doesn’t seal bottles tightly enough to suit wines that are meant to age.

Hojnoski disagreed, saying the Kwik-Kork had received top ratings in tests at a leading cork facility in Bordeaux, a bastion of the French wine industry.