Forget everything you thought you knew about uncorking your wine. Sveid introduces the perfect bottle opener, which, at $71,000, makes it the world’s most expensive corkscrew.

By Jeremy Lissek

For more than three centuries, inventors have tried to come up with the perfect corkscrew. And yet, from the bent nail to the space-age cork puller with a Teflon-coated screw, through a long march of refinement, none has achieved the precise combination of delicacy and sophistication needed to draw soft, crumbly corks without occasionally breaking one, or the strength to pop the ones that seem to have been set in place with Krazy Glue. Until now. Say hello to the Sveid, the wine collector’s newest little bff, and the world’s most expensive corkscrew, starting at $71,000.

Sveid believes that the opening of a special wine bottle is one of those simple graces, like a Japanese tea ceremony, that should only be done with an equally special, hand-made tool. Akin to a great Swiss watch, Sveid’s is a marvelous instrument that blends old-school know-how with the highest level of cutting-edge technology. And like a Faberge egg, elegance and tradition are reflected in both the jewel case package and the content in order to create the exceptional. That’s why the corkscrew went through 15 years of development.

Manufactured by master artisans in the Vallée de la Meuse, near Liege, an area of Eastern Belgium where state-of-the-art metallurgy products are designed and manufactured, Sveid has drawn on a vast store of technical expertise and cutting-edge technology. The corkscrews are made one piece at a time-and there will only be 100 of them.

The raw material used in the 52-piece corkscrew is aviation titanium (the same used in the Airbus 380), with a tested tensile strength over 1,000 Mpa. The fingertip is made in 18-carat gold, or platinum if one prefers. Each piece is individually machined by micro-electro-erosion, with a precision up to 1/100 mm. Each component is hand-adjusted, hand-finished, and polished. After being signed and numbered, the name of the owner is engraved on the corkscrew.

The jewel case is veneered in hand-sawed palm tree, yet Sveid can use other exotic woods, such as ebony or rosewood, on request. The inside is finished with shagreen and crystal, and the wooden parts are individually machined, using digitally controlled tools with a precision up to 1/10 mm. The opening mechanism, the hidden transmission system (masked by the wooden inlays), and the hinges are totally original and patented. Each case is signed and numbered, and owner engraved.

A work of art. Mechanically cool. Diverse as a snowflake. The ultimate weapon on corks. What better way to have a civilized drink in a civilized setting?