The Durand was invented by wine collector Mark Taylor who had struggled with challenging corks when opening older fine wines. Named after Yves Durand, a world-renowned sommelier, and a personal friend and mentor.

Using The Durand for older, fragile or compromised corks eliminates the unwanted outcomes of broken corks, corks pushed into bottles or corks partially removed leaving pieces floating in the wine. The Durand removes the cork whole and contained.

Famously quoted mentions of the Durand:

“Six of us gathered round our dining table last autumn for a dinner focused on red Bordeaux from the 1928 vintage.” - Jancis Robinson, MW

“No moment produces as much anxiety for wine lovers as pulling a cork on a precious old bottle.  Enter the Durand, an ingenious device constructed specifically for older bottles: It can remove even the most fragile corks without incident.” - Eric Asimov, New York Times

“Whenever you extract a cork from an old bottle, there’s always the danger of the cork breaking or falling into the wine.  Serious sommeliers and collectors have various tricks for preventing this from happening, and one of the best is to twist in a traditional corkscrew” - Wine Spectator