Cork issues

[WineYooper]

Moving some bottles around in my rack and found a bottle from 1.5 yr ago had some wine outside the cork (leakage). I opened the bottle of raspberry and when trying to remove the cork found it was spinning when I got the screw less than halfway in, pulled it out slightly and held on to the cork to screw in the rest of the way to remove. The taste was a little off to me so I'm thinking it was starting to oxidize inside. The corks were #8s. I'm not sure if it was due to a larger neck diameter or the corks. The o.d. is larger and would have had to use the larger PVC capsules if I had been using at that time. I have started to use 9 x 1.75 on my later wines thinking I may have them around longer. What this means to me is I will have to open some more of the 8 bottles I have left of my first blackberry and raspberry to see if I have this problem on any others. Oh darn, I will enjoy this. Would probably use the synthetic corks but I have the Portuguese floor corker and looking in the catalog it is not recommended with the synthetic. Anyone use synthetic with theirs?

 

[Runningwolf]

Absolutely I have used synthetic with my Port. corker without an issue. Check the top of your corker. Do you have two or three screws on top? The one with two screws is the newer model that I have. Only use #9 corks and do not soak or boil them.

 

[WineYooper]

Checked and found two screws on top. I take it you mean to use the 9s even in the synthetic.

 

[Runningwolf]

Yes that is correct.