It is early to be thinking about items needed for bottling but I wanted to make this post now that I'm thinking about it. When buying your corks, choose winery grade corks, not pure agglomerated. Agglomerated is basically like particleboard they use on houses. It takes chips of cork and by products and glues them together to form a cork. Winery grade uses natural cork on the ends and some agglomeration in the middle. They are longer, and non-chamfered (non-tapered). Winery grade corks will cost more, but it is worth it. I have used the cheap, agglomerated corks and (depending on how old they are) can crumble and come apart as you insert them into your bottles.
You spent a lot of time and money on your wine. Don't skimp on the cork.
Here is the tool I would recommend using to insert them. This is the base-level tool you should use. I wouldn't go with anything less complex or cheaper. Hand-ratcheted devices are harder to use and can leave indentations in the top of your cork, and the corks rarely go in evenly with the hand-corkers.
It retails in the $60-$70 range.
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