Helpful Hints from joeeze: How to remove a cork from a wine bottle — without a corkscrew

Hey, it happens.

For a change, something useful in this space.

Beth DeCarbo's July 24, 2008 "Quick Fix" Wall Street Journal feature offers two solutions; the piece follows.

A Cork Out Without a Corkscrew

Problem: You packed a bottle of wine for the picnic, but forgot the corkscrew.

Solution: It's an unthinkable predicament among some instructors at the Sommelier Society of America in New York, but they came up with two options. The first involves driving the cork into the bottle. "Use a narrow, cylindrical thing — a tube of [lip balm] ... or the handle of a wooden spoon — and gently, slowly push it down into the bottle," says Anne Woods, the organization's assistant to the chairman. "Then you have to be creative when you pour it," because when you tip the bottle to pour, the cork will block the flow of wine. So you'll need something long and skinny — the spoon handle again or a skewer — to hold the cork back as you pour. The second method: If you happen to have a screw — preferably one with large threads like the kind used in woodwork — it could work like a corkscrew with the help of a screwdriver, Ms. Woods says. Once you've screwed the hardware into the cork, use pliers to slowly wriggle the cork out of the neck. The Sommelier Society instructors admit this is the more difficult of the two methods.

Caveat: Expect some spillage with either method. "It will probably be messy," Ms. Woods says. But "comparing a mess to not drinking the bottle of wine at all, it's probably worth the sacrifice."

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Why do I get the feeling joehead Nation will offer us a few other, less obvious solutions?