Corkscrews: History

The free-blown, onion-shaped wine bottles (see bottles, history) of the 17th century did not have a standard size of neck. Under these circumstances, tapered corks made a satisfactory stopper, especially as a portion remained proud of the bottle top, facilitating manual removal. The mould-made cylindrical glass bottle which evolved from about 1740 could be binned horizontally to keep the cork moist and at the same time to save space. This necessitated a driven cylindrical cork of standard diameter and the removal of such a cork required a special tool.