I am having a spate of wine bottle corks breaking up as I remove them! Is this down to me buying cheap plonk do you think rather than the more expensive bottles? Starting to get fed up of pouring wine through a tea strainer!

corks tend to break up when they are dry and this can happen if the wine isn't stored properly. Should be in sufficiently humid environment and on it's side. Hope this helps

thanks for the tip. Wine never stays in our house long enough to be stored properly so guess had better just keep tea strainer handy

Have had same issue recently and turned out i just needed a new bottle opener. It worked ok on some bottles and not on others but since getting a new one have not had an issue

I agree, it is probably the corkscrew.

Is it one that has been okay in the past?

I bought a new one and it worked more like a drill than a screw.