Modern artificial corks don't change the taste of wine at all we now have neutral food-grade polymers that don't break down in contact with wine's alcohol or acidity. The long-term effects on aging are still being tested, though, so we won't know that for 10 or 20 or 50 years. Such respected, well-known California wineries as St. Francis and Bonny Doon now seal all their wines with plastic closures. If you're looking for an excellent seal, plastic has all kinds of advantages. You can store your wines upright because you don't have to keep the cork wet, and removal is always consistent.
Conventional corks tend to break in half or crumble.
Fontane says most of the feedback about plastic stoppers has been positive. We weren't going to win those people over, even though sniffing a cork doesn't give you an accurate impression of a wine's bouquet at all. Longing for your hunk of bark is just as backward as people in Dom Perignon's time longing for their oily rags. You ll need a reliable corkscrew . The classic corkscrew that you see many waiters use is a knockoff of the Chateau Laguiole corkscrew.