Cheers to Champagne Day! Every year, the 4th Friday of October toasts the sparkling drink of celebration, my favourite wine, champagne. This year, I would like to share a recent experience that I had thanks to LVMH: an exclusive Krug visit. This famously private champagne house very rarely opens its doors to the public, so this was an incredibly special opportunity.
Krug Champagne is a Champagne House founded by Joseph Krug in 1843. From Reims, France, it is the first and only House to create only prestige Champagnes every year since its foundation. The Krug Grand Cuvée is often considered the world’s best non vintage Champagne, highly sought-after by wine connoisseurs and collectors. Krug is also the creator of two of the finest single-vineyard Champagnes in the world — Krug Clos d’Ambonnay and Krug Clos du Mesnil.
I am lucky enough to own a bottle of the Krug Grande Cuvée 168ème Édition. It is a blend of 198 wines from 11 different years. The youngest is from the year 2012, while the oldest dates back to 1996. It has decadent aromas of flowers in bloom, ripe, dried and citrus fruits, as well as marzipan and gingerbread. The mouth offers flavours of hazelnut, nougat, barley sugar, jellied and citrus fruits, almonds, brioche and honey. It is truly gourmand. Something unique about Krug bottles is that every single one has its own unique ID number. This number can be searched on the Krug website/app. It provides all sorts of information about the Édition. But I digress.
Right in the center of Reims, the entrance to the estate is nondescript and can easily be missed. However, once inside the front gate, the estate is beautiful to behold. Built in a classically Champenois style, the House was three separate buildings that were merged together in recent years. Tasteful outdoor decor gives this space a zen-like feeling, even though there is a busy main street on the other side of the walls.
The interior of the House is comfortable and surprisingly modern. A comfortable lounge greets guests, complete with plush seating, warm lighting, and interesting reading material. This space leads to my favourite room: the dining room.
Krug is known for its collaborations with some of the top chefs in the world (their annual Krug x Unique Ingredient is a good example), so it is not surprising that they have mastered l’art de la table. The room is absolutely stunning! It features table for 12, a chandelier, and all sorts of decorations that are relevant to the House’s history. Music, for example, is an important part of its identity. Krug likens its champagnes to orchestras, where each wine within the blend represents a unique musician. In fact, they collaborate with famous composers to create music for each cuvée to amplify the multisensory tasting experience.
The most important object in this room, however, is actually a small book. Carefully housed in a briefcase, this dark cherry notebook was the very one used by the founder, Joseph Krug, for his son, Paul. In it, he described his philosophies and tasting notes that are still used to this day by the Maison. In fact, the colours of the walls, the outdoor gates, the packaging, and all branding are inspired by this notebook.
One of the most important philosophies from the book is still at the heart of Krug: “A good house should only create two champagnes of the same quality”. The first champagne should represent the fullest expression of champagne every single year. The second champagne should reflect the circumstances of a particular year captured by Krug. Essentially, vintage champagnes (not a blend of multiple years) created in the very best years. The Maison now has 6 different champagnes, but they generally follow these principles.
The fate of the wines is determined by an elite tasting team. Under the Cellar Master, 250 wines of the year and 150 reserve wines are auditioned. They do this in the spectacular tasting room lined with bottles representing these 400 wines. There are 10 speakers hidden in the walls which play music corresponding to the 10 regions of Champagne.
From here, I had the chance to climb underground to the cellars. It is an exciting space, full of history and savoir-faire. Magnums and Jeroboams line the walls. Standard-sized bottles were still maturing in wooden riddling racks. Each bottle is turned a little bit at a time, by hand. This allows the sediment to settle into the neck of the bottle. Candles are still used to check the sediment.
A little further down is the tank room where the Krug Champagnes are blended and stored before they’re bottled. Bright and pristine, these rooms were quite a contrast from the rest of the romantic limestone cellars. But equally as important.
One of the most fascinating parts of the cellars is the liquid library. It houses hundreds of bottles of vintages, with the oldest dating back to 1880! An incredibly rare and interesting find, as German soldiers had pilfered from many champagne houses during their occupation in WWII.
Returning back to the surface, I was guided through rooms of Krug barrels. Small 205-litre oak casks are tailor-made from trees that are more than 200 years old. They come from the forests of Hautes Futaies in Central France. The casks are only used for approximately 40 years. All the letters and numbers represent the plot that the grapes were from.
Remember how I mentioned that Krug collaborates with chefs? Each year, they pick a simple household. The featured chefs must use to create dishes that compliment that year’s Grande Cuvée. At the end of my visit, I was very kindly gifted their new cookbook for this year’s theme: rice. The recipes look incredible and there is lots of information about the chefs, the ingredients, and of course the champagne. All in a dark cherry book.
Overall, this was a very enriching experience. I went behind-the-scenes of one of the most prestigious Champagne Houses in the world. It gave me a profound appreciation for my bottle at home. I am very grateful to LVMH and Krug for this magnificent exclusive Krug visit.
