Hell of a time getting a 'cork' out of wine bottle

 In the past, I have no problems with my cork puller on cork caps of
wine bottles. But lately, every now and then one buys a bottle whch is
sealed with a black wrapper, that eventually exposes what actual plug
you have. This time it was what looked like, but doubt, an opaque
coloring of a wax plug. For some reason I had a hell of time with my
usual reliable wine puller, but not this time. I could upload a
picture of it, but am at loss on how to do it here. I  dugged and
picked with knives, screwdrivers and etc..and couldn't pry it out.
Obviously, after about an half hour or so,  i managed..fortunately,
there were no guests waiting for a glass of wine. Does anyone know
what those plugs are made of and an easier way to remove them? Thought
of soaking in water, hot or cold, but held back on that theory. Also,
why some bottles have the good old corks and others are either screwed
caps or as i had on this one ..a 'wax' plug? I would like to avoid
going through this again..how does one know when buying a bottle of
wine? BTW, this bottle was exported from Italy...if that should make a
difference.

 
Well that is what i had to do..drill a hole and yet successful as it
turned out, even then it was difficult. I still like to know what
bottles are capped differently ..country? type of wine?  etc.

 anthona wrote:

Its never as simple as that, it varys considerably over time too.

No country or type of wine always has the same type of cork.