Corks Standard wine corks are sold in large sealed polyethylene bags that contain one thousand corks. The bags are gassed with sulfur dioxide, and the humidity in the bag is carefully controlled. The corks are sterile until the bag is opened. Dry corks taken from a new bag are soft and pliable. They can be easily driven into a bottle.
Corks quickly dehydrate and become hard after the bag has been open for a few weeks.
Old, dry, hard corks are difficult to drive, and they are a terrible nuisance. Capsules Capsules are purely decorative. Plastic capsules are shipped by the manufacturer in large cardboard cartons that contain about five thousand capsules. All wine should have a label permanently attached to each bottle to identify the contents. Custom wine labels are easy to make using a home computer, and very attractive labels can be made for a few cents each.