Why You Should Ring In 2022 With One Of The World’s Most Prized Champagnes

The Champagne Krug Grand Cuvee is praised for its richness, depth and vivid notes of brioche, dried fruits, orange zest and hazelnut. It’s a bottle we open for the big moments—or even the small ones if we are living life the right way, but there is much more to a glass of Krug than zest and brioche.

The first real Krug Champagne was born of frustration. The founder, Joseph Krug, who started his career in Champagnes in 1834 with the House of Jacquesson, agonized over the fact that the wines of Champagne were often inconsistent (due to the vagaries of climate) and that there had to be a better way to protect against a bad year.

After years in the business, he concluded that the best way to ensure a quality Champagne each year was to build a serious reserve of quality grapes from various plots throughout the region. Each separate plot, Joseph determined, must be chosen for its unique and special characteristics. By blending each of these separate plots, like adding colors to fully finish a painting, one can build the perfect wine each and every year no matter what Mother Nature says.

In 1843, at the ripe age of 42, he finally put his research into action and officially opened the House of Krug. However, Joseph took things a step further. Not satisfied with simply using separate grapes from different terroirs, he also insisted fermenting each plot separately and storing the finished wines separately as well (this is no small feat when one considers the space implications). This way, when the time came to blend he could call upon the specific notes from each plot to assemble a rich, vivid expression, regardless of the harvest that year. 

Today, Krug Champagne remains one of the finest producers in the region, largely because of Joseph’s “notebook.” He passed along his legacy of winemaking Krug kept a special notebook full of everything from precise instructions to philosophical insights such as—you cannot make good wine without starting with good elements.

The notebook has been carefully preserved and passed down for five generations, and is now in the hands of the effusive and warm Olivier Krug, who is president of the house. Olivier keeps Joseph’s notebook in a special wood box—it’s as treasured as a museum piece, and likely as valuable. As the 5^th generation, it’s Olivier’s job to ensure that the Krug Champagnes stay true to the founder’s intentions while also staying relevant to today’s consumer. That’s just a wee bit of pressure, but he manages it well.

Olivier keeps his focus on the experience, making sure that consumers are as satisfied and thrilled as they were back in the mid-1800’s when Joseph made the first bottling. Yet, it’s a different landscape for Olivier, keeping up with Instagram postings, wine auctions and other events.

He fully appreciates the scope and breadth of what goes into making a bottle of Krug but he has learned that most people prefer to talk about their Krug experiences rather than the complicated efforts that go into each bottle. “Every day I hear about people’s ‘Krug Stories’—where they were and what they were doing when they had their first bottle; those stories are really the best part of being a Krug.” And, adds Olivier, “People don’t care how many wines were tasted and if they had a hint of hazelnut or brioche. What people want is an experience and we can give them that. Of course, there are significant challenges, but I see them more as opportunities.”

While Olivier juggles the public face of Krug, Krug Cellar Master, Julie Cavil, must manage the pressure of ensuring each year’s Grand Cuvee is as good as the previous year’s, delivering the experience that Olivier talks about.

During an average year, Cavil must taste and select from 350-to 400 wines, sorting through thousands of tasting notes and hundreds of wines from various years. All of this tasting, documenting and blending might seem obsessive, but it’s the very heart of what makes Krug special. Not surprisingly, Olivier has partnered with Riedel to craft the perfect glass for drinking Krug, called, aptly, The Joseph Glass. He feels so strongly about the glass that he confesses that he finds it heartbreaking when he sees images of people drinking his eponymous wine out of flutes. “When I see people enjoying Krug Grand Cuvee on Instagram I just cringe if they are using a flute because they are missing all of the beauty in the wine this way,” says Olivier.

Krug is indeed something unique, a multi-vintage expression crafted from over 200 to 250 separate plots of grapes. All of that exacting blending is exactly why a sip of Krug hits every note on your palate—fresh, rich, playful and complex. It’s the perfect choice for ringing in 2022.