I just bought one of these and am curious about others experience with it. The Portugese corker I'm used to had a stamped metal flang on the underside that firmly located the top of the bottle under the hole that the cork pushes through - the Italian version doesn't have this, but instead just has an opening in the bottom that's a good bit larger than the top of my 750 ml bottle (I presume to accomodate larger bottles as well). Also on the Italian corker the plate the bottle sits on is painted metal versus a textured plastic on the Portugese, and seems to be a more slippery surface for the bottle to rest upon. All together, it seems like the bottle is not as firmly seated in the Italian corker as it is with the Portugese. However, the Italian corker does seem to compress the corks and insert them much more easily. I'm curious for any of you who have used both, whether you experience any problems with the cork inserting properly with the Italian corker - just a few trial insertions and it seems to work very easily with both real cork and synthetic, but a few of the real corks got a tear on the bottom. Does the lack of a firmly located bottle lead to tears on your corks? Is there any way to manage this?
Any ideas you can share on the best use of this corker would be appreciated (e.g. I put a thin rubber mat on the bottle rest, and that seemed to help stabilize the bottle). Also, there's no directions with this thing - does anyone know what the "adjusting screw for the plate", at the bottom, is used for.
Thanks for your help,
Ed