Yeah, the double hinge-y cork screws are great. That's what I use at work.

dear friends,
we use both synthetic and natural corks in our winery. yes, the synthetic corks do not have the tca issue, but they are not the equal of natural corks in other areas. the biggest area where they differ is in oxygen permeability, whether through the cork, or between it and the bottle. synthetic corks are a less effective oxygen barrier (currently) than natural corks. and natural corks are a less effective barrier than screwcaps.

this has several implications. since the rate of aging of the wine in the bottle is directly related to the availability of oxygen to the wine inside, wine will age more quickly under a synthetic cork than natural, which will age more quickly than wine under a screwcap, if all else is equal.

but all else is not equal. the winemaker will assess the ageability of a wine, and the anticipated time it may spend in the bottle before it is opened, and the closure to be used. wine intended to be consumed with less aging is a good candidate for a synthetic cork. and the plot thickens: the winemaker will decide based on those factors just how much "free so2" (what many refer to as sulfites) to add to the wine at bottling time. the reason the so2 is added is that it protects the wine from oxygen. it is the most effective thing in the bottle at eating oxygen. as the oxygen combines with the so2, the so2 is converted to a no-longer active state, reducing the protection against oxygen to, eventually, zero. as the so2 is depleted, the aging process, and eventually spoilage, can proceed as the oxygen becomes available to the wine.

what you may be observing as bottle shock from wine under synthetic corks could be a so2 content higher than would allow for proper aroma development. many winemakers will bottle their wine destined for synthetic corks with a higher so2 content to offset the faster oxygen infiltration into the bottle. if this wine made its way into your hands faster than the winemaker assumed, a higher so2 would not be surprising. fortunately, as you observed, decanting the wine to aerate it will help deplete the remaining so2.

current winemaking practice is making great strides at having the wine near its peak when bottled, so decade(s) of aging may become much more rare. this trend may lead more winemakers to screwcaps, since the carefully crafted contents should age as slowly as possible if it is already very near the peak, and screwcaps will age the wine the most slowly.

and they are much less expensive than either type of cork - the other huge factor in their use.

on the other hand, syntrhetic corks continue to be developed, and they need not necessarily outperform natural cork. if they can become their equivalent, the lack of tca alone will enable their continued surging popularity.

i alluded to other differences between synthetic corks and natural. some of you have observed sensory impressions from wine under synthetic corks not easily attributable to high so2 levels. all corks, synthetic or natural, are "coated" at the end of the manufacturing process. the coating is a lubricant. i do not know the various compositions used, but suspect they are silicone and/or wax based. it is not unreasonable to assume these coatings could interact with the wine in a detectable way.

also there are two types of synthetic corks as you observed - one piece molded ones, looking like they have a shiny skin (supreme corq), sometimes hard to extract in our testing; the other type are extruded and then cut to length, so they appear to have a skin on the cylindrical surface but the ends show the core material. the ones we use are made by nomacork, and appear to have a denser core than the others. there is some controversy about the degree of scalping (aroma absorption) that the synthetic corks exhibit. the jury is still out on that, but it looks like there is a very tiny but observable difference, where synthetic corks can very slightly decrease aromas. but in my book that is better than a few % corked bottles.

so, while screw caps are cheaper, and a near perfect seal, the purists will want to see what real, gradual bottle aging can do to the wine. those are the differences that can inspire us to keep trying to make ever better wines.

and if we lose the magic and romance of a traditional cork extraction experience, the wine may not suffer, but somehow i think it cheapens our collective soul just a little tiny bit.

'whew' got carried away there...
think i'll go extract a cork.
cheers
rix