Krug

Most champagne houses produce non-vintage blends, vintage wines and, if they have the ambition, a prestige cuvée. The House of Krug takes a different approach. Every wine it produces, from an entry-level bottle to the rarest single-vineyard release, is regarded as a prestige cuvée. This is the house’s founding promise, and six generations of the same family have remained true to it since 1843.

History

Joseph Krug, born Johann-Joseph Krug, was born in Mainz in 1800 into a butcher’s family. He moved to Champagne to work as an accountant for the Jacquesson house, where he spent eight years learning the winemaking craft from the inside, travelling across Europe and tasting the wines available on the market. By the early 1840s, he was already blending champagne for other houses. In 1843, having moved to Reims, he founded the company ‘Krug et Cie’ together with his silent partner Hippolyte de Vivès, resolving to produce the finest champagne he was capable of, year in, year out, and not just in those years when nature was favourable.

In 1848, he set out his philosophy in a personal notebook, which is still quoted to this day: ‘Good wine requires good ingredients and good terroirs, and that is that.’ Joseph died in 1866 and was succeeded by his son Paul, who had been educated both in France and abroad. The house was passed down through six generations and, in the 1960s and 1970s, came under the ownership of Henri and Rémy Krug, who expanded the range with the ‘Clos du Mesnil’ and ‘Krug Rosé’ lines. In January 1999, after many years under the management of Rémy Cointreau, the House of Krug was sold to the LVMH group. Olivier Krug, a representative of the sixth generation, became director of the House in 2009 and remains in this position to this day. Julie Cavil has been chief winemaker since 2013.

Vineyards

Krug sources grapes from across the Champagne region, treating each plot as a distinct wine with its own individual character. The house also owns two walled vineyards: ‘Clos du Ménil’ — a 1.84-hectare plot planted with Chardonnay in the village of Le Ménil-sur-Oger on the Côte des Blancs, acquired in the early 1970s, and ‘Clos d’Ambonne’ — a 0.68-hectare plot planted with Pinot Noir in the village of Grand Cru Ambonne on the Montagne de Reims, acquired in 1994. Both plots produce single-vineyard, single-vintage champagnes, released only in exceptional years. In 2024, Krug began construction of a new, environmentally sustainable winery named ‘Joseph’ in Ambonne, a village that has for many years supplied some of the house’s most important base wines.

Terroir

Rather than focusing on a single appellation or soil type, Krug’s approach is to use grapes from a variety of terroirs across the region: Grand Cru and Premier Cru villages, as well as other selected plots, each of which is vinified separately and tasted individually before a decision is made on the blend. Clos du Mesnil is situated on the chalk and limestone soils of the Côte des Blancs, renowned for producing Chardonnay of exceptional purity and minerality. Clos d’Ambonne is situated on chalk-rich soils in the Montagne de Reims – the heartland of Grand Cru Pinot Noir in Champagne.

Grapes

All three classic Champagne grape varieties are used: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. The proportions vary from one Édition Grande Cuvée to the next. In a recent release, based on the 2016 harvest, the blend consisted of 44 per cent Pinot Noir, 36 per cent Chardonnay and 20 per cent Meunier.

Winemaking

Krug’s approach is based on three principles, which the house refers to as ‘individuality’, ‘blending’ and ‘patience’. The harvest from each vineyard plot is gathered and fermented separately, so every wine that enters the cellar expresses its own character. Over the course of several months following the harvest, Cellar Master Julie Cavil and the tasting committee work through around 400 wines from more than ten different vintages, recording approximately 5,000 tasting notes, before proceeding to the blending stage. Each Édition Grande Cuvée brings together more than 120 individual wines from at least ten different vintages. The reserve cellar, which houses wines from many vintages, typically accounts for around 30–42 per cent of the final blend. After blending, the bottles are aged on their lees for at least six years in Krug’s cellars in Reims before release. From harvest to the table, a bottle of Grande Cuvée takes over 20 years to reach the consumer.

Wines

The range varies from Krug Grande Cuvée, the flagship multi-vintage wine, released each year in a new Édition, to Krug Rosé, also a multi-vintage wine, first released in 1983 after seven years of development, and to Krug Vintage, produced only in years that the House considers exceptional.

Above these are two single-vineyard wines: ‘Clos du Mesnil’, a 100 per cent Chardonnay from the walled Mesnil vineyard, first produced from the 1979 harvest, and ‘Clos d’Ambonnay’, a 100 per cent Pinot Noir from the tiny Ambonnay plot, released only in select years.

The ‘Krug Collection’, a selection of fully matured old vintages drawn from the house’s own cellars, rounds off the range, in which every bottle, regardless of tier, meets exactly the same standards.