Photos Victorinox Wine Master, or: In dubio pro Vino

[TheHunt]

The best time of year, summer vacation!
So, if the worlds most best wife of all times (which is mine!), decides to go to a guided tour on a wineyard, what else to say than yes?
..including a tasting of the offerings, of course.

So, off we went.

The inclined beer drinker will think of Rhein, Mosel or Aar, even Chateaux Lafite, but far from it!

We are talking about a small island in the northsea, Föhr to be exact.
A wineyard in the northsea?
How should that work?

...well lets say, clima change has its benefits, after all.

If you´re interested in the whereabouts, I encourage you to have a look for your self: https://www.weingut-waalem.de/de/

That´s what it looks like:

All good and fine, but what the heck has this rambling to do on a knifeboard?
Perfect question!

Surely you won´t think we came back without some appropriate souveniers?

Hah!

For a grasp of the selfimage of the frisian people, have a look, and let google translate be your guide

Sooo…. wine, bottle, cork…
Does that ring a bell?

Actually we don´t own a „real“ canopener, or corkscrew. But we have one or two Victorinox pocket tools...

And as faith will have it, Victorinox just released the new Wine Master.
A perfect excuse to get the above mentioned outstanding wife to agree to a new tool in the collection

The brown sheath is made from real leather, by the way.
The Wine Master comes with walnut or olive scales, the later having found its way to our collection.

Thank God for the manual, even I can manage this.

Second from the bottom:

Linerlock, as the „big boys“ from Victorinox all come with:

No surprises with the large blade, all in top notch quality, as we came to love and expect from the offerings from Ibach.

So, what´s new?
This:

 

[TheHunt]

I hope i get the designations right, please chime in if not!
Here we have a foil cutter, the serrations are sharp, but robust, perfectly fitted to gut the foil on the glass neck of the bottle. Too sharp would be counter productive here…

Corkscrew and lever mechanism:

The corkscrew is larger and more substantial than the one used in the other large tools:
I think you can see it quite clearly:

Even the circumfence is larger, the mini screwdriver nearly drowns in the windings...

All nice and shiny, but does it work?
Some corks require much more force than others to be pulled. And here the Wine Master realy shines.
The level mechanism should look vaguely familiar, as its often found in cheaply made waiter´s knifes. „Give me a lever long enough….“ you shloud know the rest

Same here:

Foil cutter, one swift motion, done.

How to screw in a corkscrew is common knowlege, right?

As usual, a two stage lever to get the cork out:

One hearthy push, and:

Free, free at last!

And no to the main course:

Candlelight:

And, what´s the verdict?
The wine is outstanding!
2016er Waalem, Johanniter, Solaris. Very aromatic, fruity and fresh, lots of character.

The Wine Master?
Top notch!

Did you realy expect anything eles from the Swiss?
Initially I had a some difficulties with the foil cutter, my fault, not the knives. Pulling the cork is easily done, the lever makes short work with even the most stubborn corks. But some training doesn´t hurt

A little special:
For those of you who, like me, normaly grabs a cold beer instead of wine, theres a little easter egg for you:

The manual doesn´t mentions it, but there is a hidden bottleopener as well.

...nothing to see here, right?

But:

Swiss engineering, I love it! And this comes from a German


At the end of the day, what´s the verdict?
A new tool in the Line Up von Victorinox. New as in new new.
Sexy.
Leather.
Nice Wood.

Good buy!

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions, shoot!

 

[tyyreaun]

I just got one of these last week. Great fit and finish. Haven't had a chance to use it on a wine bottle yet.

I don't like the liner lock/push button mechanism. I'm not much of an SAK guy normally, but having the main blade held with both a slipjoint spring and a liner lock seems like a belt and suspenders approach. If they wanted to make it a liner lock, I'd have preferred the spring tension be much lower, to make it easier to close.

Incidentally, as it's my first liner lock Victorinox, it took me a while to figure out the button releases the lock. I was closing it like a normal liner lock, and thought it was just badly designed