Wine, an ancient grape-derived intoxicating beverage has, in some cases, been transformed into one of the most overpriced products of our time. At some future date I hope to deal with how designers have been accomplices in the wonderful con in which the beverage accompanying a meal costs more than the food.
At the moment my attention has been caught by tools for extracting the cork with which some wine bottles are closed. The New York Times has just lavished attention on a line of corkscrews which range in price from $220 to $410. I call the design and production of such objects indecent and an offense against the higher ideals of design. These ideals include designing a quality product which can be sold at the lowest possible price.
First, let the record reflect that cork is no longer the best way to close a wine bottle. The screw cap probably is better. All cork has in its favor is its "tradition," the opening "ceremony" it compels and the power of the cork-producing interests. So we have an outrageously expensive tool dedicated to an inferior and soon-to-be obsolete closure of an overpriced product. How foolishly decadent can you get?
Second, the objects in question have no meaningful functional superiority to those which cost one-tenth the price or less. There is, however, a sort of perverse logical consistency in using an obscenely overpriced tool to open an obscenely overpriced bottle of wine.
I propose an alternative bottle-opening ceremony which could use the simplest and least expensive sort of corkscrew - a screw set in a horizontal handle. The wine-opening ceremony with such a tool could be gussied up this way: The sommelier or host wheels in a small platform with a hole in its center. He or she raises the top of the platform and inserts the wine bottle so that its neck extends up through the hole. Then he or she inserts the screw of a corkscrew into the cork, climbs up on the platform, bends over or kneels and pulls up on the corkscrew to extract the cork.
But wait, I have unjustifiably assumed that the screw cap means the end of the wine-opening ceremony. Maybe I have not reckoned with the ingenuity of designers working for the wine establishment. Perhaps it will be discovered that simply twisting off the cap with one's fingers traumatizes the wine. I begin to see the outlines of a wheel-shaped device held reverently in the hands of a sommelier. It resembles the steering wheel of a sailing ship. It delicately grips the cap and turns in a mystical circular movement. Yes, there is hope.
At the moment my attention has been caught by tools for extracting the cork with which some wine bottles are closed. The New York Times has just lavished attention on a line of corkscrews which range in price from $220 to $410. I call the design and production of such objects indecent and an offense against the higher ideals of design. These ideals include designing a quality product which can be sold at the lowest possible price.
First, let the record reflect that cork is no longer the best way to close a wine bottle. The screw cap probably is better. All cork has in its favor is its "tradition," the opening "ceremony" it compels and the power of the cork-producing interests. So we have an outrageously expensive tool dedicated to an inferior and soon-to-be obsolete closure of an overpriced product. How foolishly decadent can you get?
Second, the objects in question have no meaningful functional superiority to those which cost one-tenth the price or less. There is, however, a sort of perverse logical consistency in using an obscenely overpriced tool to open an obscenely overpriced bottle of wine.
I propose an alternative bottle-opening ceremony which could use the simplest and least expensive sort of corkscrew - a screw set in a horizontal handle. The wine-opening ceremony with such a tool could be gussied up this way: The sommelier or host wheels in a small platform with a hole in its center. He or she raises the top of the platform and inserts the wine bottle so that its neck extends up through the hole. Then he or she inserts the screw of a corkscrew into the cork, climbs up on the platform, bends over or kneels and pulls up on the corkscrew to extract the cork.
But wait, I have unjustifiably assumed that the screw cap means the end of the wine-opening ceremony. Maybe I have not reckoned with the ingenuity of designers working for the wine establishment. Perhaps it will be discovered that simply twisting off the cap with one's fingers traumatizes the wine. I begin to see the outlines of a wheel-shaped device held reverently in the hands of a sommelier. It resembles the steering wheel of a sailing ship. It delicately grips the cap and turns in a mystical circular movement. Yes, there is hope.
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