The cork was never meant to be pulled.
Every other wine opener screws into the cork and pulls. In 1961 a machinist in Northern California asked whether it had to come out that way at all — and answered it with a needle, a breath of gas, and eight patents.
A cork grips the glass along its whole length.
It was driven in at the winery under pressure. Every traditional opener overcomes that grip the same way — by pulling harder. Which is why old corks crumble, why dry corks split, and why the last inch is always a fight.
George Federighi's answer was to stop pulling. Put a hollow needle through the cork, introduce a small amount of gas beneath it, and let the pressure lift it out whole. The cork never sees a screw. Nothing is torn.
How it became the thing on your counter.
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1961
A machinist stops pulling
George J. Federighi had already reinvented one machine — the automated commercial dishwashing systems built by Stero in Petaluma, still behind the swing doors of restaurants across the country. Wine was the next familiar task he refused to accept the answer to.
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1964
Ejective pressurized cork
US 3,135,410The founding document. A hollow needle through the cork, gas beneath it, and the cork lifts out whole.
Filed 20 January 1964 -
1964
Cork ejector with pressurized liquid propellant
US 3,192,803Filed ten weeks after the first — a second way to deliver the pressure, worked through in parallel.
Filed 30 March 1964 -
My father invented the theory of how it works in 1961, but the business kind of went by the wayside, and he didn't do anything with it.
Bill Federighi, Marin Independent Journal -
1986
Pressure metering cork extractor
US 4,791,834A metering valve. Too little gas and the cork doesn't move; too much and you have a problem. This is what makes the same tool right on a fresh cork and on a forty-year-old one.
Filed 3 November 1986 -
1989
The son takes it up
Bill Federighi founds Cork Pops Inc. in Novato, takes his father's principle off the shelf and starts turning it into a tool people can buy.
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1993
Automatic cork extractor
US 5,372,054Adds the cork-seal remover — the blade assembly that takes the foil off, built into the same body so there is nothing else to reach for.
Filed 14 June 1993 -
2002
Cork extractor tool
US 6,622,595A needle carrier that rotates as it descends, so the needle turns its own way through the cork instead of being forced. This is the twist action on the Legacy today.
Filed 1 August 2002 -
2010
Corkscrew with unidirectional clutch drive
US 8,479,611A one-way clutch: rock the handle back and forth instead of turning it through full circles. Easier on a wrist that doesn't want to rotate.
Filed 19 April 2010 -
2009–11
Aerating pour spouts
US 8,245,882 · US 8,365,964The mechanism behind VinOair, including a version that closes itself when the bottle is set down.
Filed December 2009 and December 2011
What's actually in the cartridge?
Most people assume compressed air. It isn't. The cartridge holds a food-safe inert gas at low pressure — inert because it does not react with the wine and has no effect on flavour or aroma, and low-pressure because the job is to lift a cork, not to launch it.
One cartridge opens roughly 60 to 80 bottles. And they have never been redesigned out of compatibility: an opener bought decades ago takes the cartridge sold today.
