Antiques Magazine Archive, January 2024

Do you know how bottles of wine are bought around the world in 1 year?

31.4 billion bottles!

Whilst a lot of these will come with screw tops, can you imagine how many corks there are that need to be removed?

The problem has always been this: how do we open them?

Even the Romans couldn’t work that one out. But nowadays, our little friend – stuck in the back of the kitchen drawer – has seen a lot of wine in its time.

In this article, Antiques.co.uk founder Iain Brunt explores the history and development of the trusty corkscrew - and why they should be collector's items.