We Tested 10 Electric Wine Openers to Find These 3 We Recommend

Our Favorite Electric Wine Opener 

We tested 10 electric wine openers, but our top pick is the Peugeot Elis Touch Electric Corkscrew. Sleek, slightly heavier, and intuitive, the Peugeot removed the cork from our bottles in less than 10 seconds with zero wobbling. We liked its clean stainless steel design and appreciated the compact charging station and foil cutter. We also liked its pressure-activated automatic start feature, which never caused any false starts.

How We Tested Electric Wine Openers

We tested 10 electric wine openers through a month-long testing period. We used the same two bottles of still wine to test each wine opener: One white (a bottle of Grillo or a Muscadet) and one red (a bottle of Nero d'Avola or a Portuguese Vinho Tinto). 

We evaluated each electric wine opener by using the below testing methodology:

• Design: We unboxed each wine opener and evaluated its general design and construction. We noted if it was a sleek, attractive product we would happily display on our bar cart or if it felt bulky, heavy, or outdated. We also evaluated if the materials felt sturdy or cheaply constructed and noted any helpful design features like built-in foil cutters, included accessories, buttons, and LED light displays. 
• Speed: Each time we used the electric wine opener to open a bottle, we timed how long it took to remove the cork. We also noted the downward force required to initiate the cork removal and ejection and the force required to remove the foil from a bottle if a foil cutter was included.
• Stability: We noted any wobbling or instability encountered during uncorking and if any corks got stuck in the chamber during ejection.
• Noise: We observed the noise produced by each opener, noting if it was distracting.  
• Manual Start: We paid close attention to models with automatic starts, evaluating if they helped or hindered the cork removal process. In most cases, we preferred manual starts with the push of a button since this gave us more control. 

What We Looked For

Ease of Use

The best electric wine openers make it easy to quickly and safely remove a cork from a bottle of wine, so we paid close attention to how user-friendly the models were in our tests. Any models that proved to be wobbly, felt unstable, damaged the cork, or led to corks getting lodged in the chamber were not included in our list of winners. 

Included Accessories

Most electric wine openers will include a USB cord and wall charging unit, but pricier electric wine openers usually also include a matching charging stand and foil cutter. If you’re gifting a wine lover or looking for a comprehensive set, we recommend the Peugeot Elis Touch Electric Corkscrew since it comes boxed with these accessories in a nice giftable box. 

Manual vs Automatic Starts

We tested several openers with an automatic start and actually found most to be more difficult to use than those with a manual start or a simple push-button. For some pressure-activated automatic corkscrews we tested, the corkscrew falsely started before making contact with the cork, and in some cases, before it was even placed on top of the bottle. With the exception of the Peugeot Elis, we’d recommend electric wine openers with a manual start and, ideally, a simple push-button. 

Size

Sure, you’ll be using your wine openers a lot — but there are certainly instances where you might want to keep them out of sight, too. When testing the best electric openers, we looked for sleek designs that were not unnecessarily bulky and could easily be stored, like the travel-sized Ozeri, or the compact Zwilling. The exception to this rule is the Peugeot, which comes with a compact charging doc that you’ll likely want to keep displayed on your bar cart anyways. 

Other Electric Wine Openers We Tested

After testing 10 electric wine openers, we recommend only the three picks on our list above. The below models fell short in two or more major testing categories, which prevented them from making our best list. Here’s where they could have done better:

Cuisinart EvolutionX Cordless 4-in-1 Wine Opener ($70 at Amazon)
This wine opener felt cheaply constructed due to its plastic frame, and we felt its rectangular shape was too awkward to snugly place onto a bottle of wine. It took us a few attempts to make even contact with the cork to properly remove the cork using this opener. We had to tilt the wine opener over and look at exactly where the corkscrew was located before lowering it straight on top of each cork, so there was an extra step involved to properly align this opener every time. The included foil cutter also felt flimsy and almost dangerously sharp. 

Cuisinart Vacuum Sealer Cordless Wine Opener ($40 at Amazon)
This wine opener has two buttons and was not as intuitive to use as we had hoped. We found we had to hold the base of the wine pretty firmly to prevent the bottle from spinning and moving around on the countertop. While it removed the white wine's cork very easily, we had trouble with the bottle of red's cork. It ended up completely bending, almost in half.

Oster Electric Wine Opener ($25 at Amazon)
The design of this wine opener felt excessively bulky, too tall, and a bit outdated. During our tests, cork remnants fell into our bottle, and the extractors felt jilty, stopping and going along the way. While we liked the included foil cutter, we did not like the clunky charging station. Ultimately, this wine opener took upwards of 30 seconds to open a bottle of wine. 

Rabbit Automatic Electric Corkscrew ($52 at Amazon)
We thought this wine opener was going to be the easiest to use since there are no buttons and it's automatic. However, we quickly realized that it was very difficult to get the timing down correctly to properly uncork. Since this corkscrew automatically starts at any detection of pressure, the cork extraction process started automatically (and prematurely) several times during our tests.

The whole cycle ran automatically for the uncorking and extrusion, and there was no way to stop it. So if we misaligned the corkscrew or nudged the bottle at all before we were ready to uncork, we had to wait for the full 20-ish second cycle to end before we could open a bottle. There were no buttons or features that let us control the action or stop the cycle, so this wine opener was not very easy to use whatsoever. It made opening a bottle more difficult than it should be.

Rabbit Electric Wine Opener Set ($50 at Amazon)
The actual extraction process was relatively smooth and fast with this corkscrew, but we felt it came with far too many subpar accessories. This set comes with an electric corkscrew, a charging base, a foil cutter, an aerator/pourer, and two wine stoppers. While it comes with lots of accessories, there are so many pieces that we found the whole setup to be a bit overwhelming. More importantly: The foil cutter did not work. 

Secura Electric Wine Opener ($23 at Amazon)
While this wine opener semi-successfully opened our bottle of red wine, the Secura Electric Wine Opener completely broke the neck of our white wine, causing glass shards to enter the wine and posing a potential safety hazard. We chalk this up partially to user error, but we also noted that this wine opener felt wobbly and stable when it did successfully open our red. 

Wine Enthusiast 2-in-1 Electric Blue Automatic Wine Bottle Opener ($60 at Amazon)
We thought the automatic feature would make this wine opener very easy to use, but we had difficulty positioning the corkscrew correctly over the cork once the automatic uncorking process had already begun. We also had to use a very secure grip and a fair amount of downward pressure to stabilize the wine opener, which would be limiting for anyone with joint issues or lacking upper body or arm strength.

We would have preferred a button to hold once we correctly positioned this wine opener over the cork to initiate the uncorking process manually. The automatic uncorking proved to be more problematic than helpful. The button-operated extrusion process, however, worked just fine.

Our Expertise

• Danielle St. Pierre is a senior commerce editor for Food & Wine. She has a WSET Level 1 Award in Wine and professional bartending experience tasting, serving, and pairing wines. She has opinions on Aperol Spritzes, where to find the best stemless wine glasses, and why everyone should have a reliable wine stopper on standby. She’d like to thank her former local wine shop, Drink PLG, in Brooklyn, New York for allowing her to shoot these wine stoppers in their backyard.
• Dana Fouchia is a senior commerce editor for Food & Wine. In addition to testing several electric wine openers for this piece, she’s also reviewed the Rocco wine fridge and will happily guide you where to find the best drinking glasses.