On a recent cruise we ordered a bottle of 2004 Cakebread Sauv Blanc, tasted fine, grassy ect, but when I took a close look at the cork, on the bottem it was covered in very hard crystals, in fact very hard to remove from the cork. Good thing.....bad thing????? Any thought

thx

Tartrate crystals, most probably. Totally harmless. Keep drinking, and you'll run across them again, for sure!

A little info here.....

PH

Agree with PH. I find them in Chardonnays more frequently than SBs.

Interesting. I find them more often in reds, but then again, I drink more red than white. My passive cellar rarely falls below 50 degrees, so at what temperature do they actually crystalize?