Champagne Krug
Krug Champagne is a Champagne house founded by Joseph Krug in 1843. It is based principally in Reims, the main city in France's Champagne region and is one of the famous Champagne houses that formed part of the Grandes marques. Today the house is majority owned by the multinational conglomerate Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton whose portfolio includes other well known wine brands such as Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Château d'Yquem and Ruinart. Despite LVMH's majority ownership, the Krug family is still actively involved in all the key decisions of the house but does not manage the day-to-day operations.
Moët Hennessy's Dom Pérignon is often compared to Krug, the latter being described as a "more intellectual wine" by Jancis Robinson.
History
Joseph Krug founded the House of Krug in 1843. He was born Johann-Joseph Krug, a butcher's son, in Mainz, on the Rhine, in 1800, at a time when the city was part of the Napoleonic Empire. Having dispensed with the name Johann, he left Mainz in 1824 and by 1834 he was in Paris. Germans were then much in demand in France as accountants and book-keepers and, as such, Joseph joined Champagne Jacquesson in Châlons-sur-Marne.He spent eight years with Jacquesson, with his work taking him beyond accountancy as he went on the road around Europe testing the market and assessing criticism from wine sellers and customers. He learned about composition and taste so that by 1840 he already seems to have been blending Champagne for at least one other house. In 1841 he married Emma-Anne Jaunay, the daughter of a French hotelier based in London's Leicester Square, and an English mother. The following year their son, Paul Krug, was born. In 1842 came the move to Reims and, following a year of negotiations, Krug et Cie. was founded in 1843 with sleeping partner Hyppolite de Vivès. Joseph was also fluent in French, English and German and spoke some Russian, putting the company in position to exploit key overseas markets.
Joseph died in 1866 and was succeeded by his son Paul Krug, who had been trained by his father for the business in France and abroad. Joseph had laid the foundations and under the supervision of Paul the House was established as a grande marque. By the 1880s the prestige of Krug was acknowledged in the United Kingdom, then the primary overseas market for Champagne. In 1866 the House moved into the premises in Rue Coquebert, in Reims, that it still occupies.
After Paul's death in 1910, he was succeeded by his son, Joseph Krug II. However, during World War I Joseph II was taken prisoner and his wife Jeanne played a key role in the House, at a time when the Western Front divided the region between the Allies and the Germans. After the war, Joseph II's slow recovery led to his nephew Jean Seydoux becoming joint manager in 1924. In that decade, too, the Krug 1926 and 1928 vintages were created, which have been considered by critics to be amongst the greatest Champagnes. The lawyer and wine writer Maurice Healey observed in 1940 that "Krug holds my allegiance as the king of them all; my recollection does not go beyond the Krug 1919, but that was truly an excellent wine. And Krug 1928 must be the best wine made in the present century."
By the mid-1930s, Paul Krug II, the son of Joseph II, was active in the business and would go on to become head of the House from 1959 to 1977. His father died in 1967, by which time he was, according to Patrick Forbes, "one of the most popular and respected figures in the Champagne district".
In 1962 Henri Krug, the son of Paul II, joined the management, as did his brother Remi three years later. Their arrival was followed by a series of innovations, including extensions in the range of Champagnes. Henri Krug became president of the family company in 1977. In 1979, for the first time, a graduate winemaker joined the House. In January 1999, Krug was sold by Rémy Cointreau to LVMH. In 2002, Henri Krug stepped down, naming his son Olivier to replace him. By 2007, the brothers, while remaining on the tasting committee, had stepped down from day-to-day responsibilities. In 2009 Olivier Krug, the son of Henri, became House director.
In 2022, Ryuchi Sakamoto released a symphony, "Suite for Krug in 2008", about his experiences tasting Krug champagne in 2008.
Champagnes
Krug produces mainly Krug Grande Cuvée, supplemented by a non-vintage rosé, a vintage blanc, a vintage blanc de blancs from the Clos du Mesnil in the Cotes de Blancs, a vintage blanc de noirs from the Clos d'Ambonnay and older vintages released as Krug Collection series.On the nose, Krug is characterized by toasted, grilled, pastry or almond notes born from at least 6 years of ageing sur lies. On the palate, Krug is characterized by notes of fresh fruit, particularly citrus, and a freshness linked to grape selection. Krug does not suppress malolactic fermentation nor does it provoke it, with the majority of its wines not undergoing the process. Its wines are almost invariably dry.
The Krug line-up of Champagnes currently includes:
- Krug Grande Cuvée
- Krug Rosé
- Krug Vintage 2000, Krug Vintage 2003 and Krug Vintage 2004
- Krug Collection 1989
- Krug Clos du Mesnil 2000 and Krug Clos du Mesnil 2003
- Krug Clos d'Ambonnay 1998 and Krug Clos d'Ambonnay 2000
Krug Rosé is described by the House as a gastronomic Champagne. The fruit of an experiment carried out by Henri and Rémi Krug in the 1970s, the first bottles of Krug Rosé were presented for tasting in 1983, 140 years after the company's founding. Krug Rosé is a blend of three grape varieties, several different vintages from Krug's library of 150 reserve wines and a skin-fermented Pinot noir wine which gives it its color and unique flavor. Krug Rosé spends at least five years in the House's cellars. It is re-created on a yearly basis.
Krug Vintage is, according to the House, "not the selection of the best wines of a particular year, but rather the expression of that year according to Krug." Composed only of wines from a single year, Krug Vintage sits in Krug's cellars for at least a decade before release. The 2000 vintage was born of the House's desire to create a vintage for the last year of the millennium.
In the early 1980s, Krug introduced Krug Collection, an extension of Krug Vintage, consisting of bottles that have been kept in the House's cellars in Reims for at least ten additional years to allow the development of second-life aromas and flavours. The current offering is Krug Collection 1989. It is the first vintage from the trilogy of 1988, 1989 and 1990 to be released as part of Krug Collection, preceding 1988 upon the House's decision.
Krug Clos du Mesnil comes from a single plot of Chardonnay: a 1.84-hectare vineyard protected by walls since 1698 in the centre of Mesnil-sur-Oger, a village in the Champagne region of France. It comes from a single year and is kept in Krug's cellars for over a decade.
Krug Clos d'Ambonnay also comes from a single year, and its grapes from a single 0.68-hectare walled plot of Pinot noir in the heart of Ambonnay, another village in France's Champagne region that plays a key role in Champagne making. Bottles are aged for over twelve years in Krug's cellars and are rare due to the small size of the vineyard.
Winemaking
Krug utilizes all three Champagne varieties in their wines, Chardonnay, Pinot noir, and Pinot Meunier. For their two single vineyard vintages, Krug Clos du Mesnil is made in the Blanc de blancs style, completely from Chardonnay, while Krug Clos d'Ambonnay is made exclusively from Pinot noir.The winemaking process at Krug begins with the individual selection of each plot of vines and continues with the initial vinification of the grapes from each plot in wooden casks, which – unlike tanks – are small enough to give the House the flexibility to hold a single plot's wine and therefore avoid pre-mature blending. In the event that a plot's wine is not up to the required level, it will leave the house as a bulk, never again to be labelled a Krug base wine.
Pressing and initial fermentation
Immediately following the harvest, the grapes are pressed close to Krug's plots, with this first grape juice kept for 24 hours in a vat in preparation for the fermentation stage.The pressing from each plot is vinified separately. A pressing contains 4,000 kg of grapes and yields 20.5 hectolitres of first juice, which is poured into twelve oak casks chosen at random. Once fermentation is complete, the eleventh and twelfth casks are used to top up the other ten casks to protect the new wines from oxidation. For fifteen days, each cask is topped up with wine from the same plot.
Krug uses small 205-litre oak casks tailor-made from trees that are more than two centuries old in the forests of Hautes Futaies in Central France. Krug never use these casks immediately; during the first two or three years, they receive only second and third grape juices, with the goal of "tanning" the casks through the fermentation process, ridding them naturally of their woody aromas, making them well-seasoned and organoleptically inert. The average age of Krug oak casks is 20 years. They are retired after approximately 40 years of use.
During the summer preceding the harvest, casks are regularly watered to humidify the wood, a process Krug deems essential as its wines are not wood-aged and its casks are therefore empty for eight to nine months of the year.
The wines remain in the casks for several weeks. During this period, clarification occurs naturally from the cool temperature of the cellar given the coming winter, as does a micro-oxygenation process from the use of natural containers, making the wine more resistant to oxygen over time. Finally, between December and January, the wine is drawn off into small stainless-steel vats. From here, depending on the decisions of Krug's tasting committee, the wines will either contribute to that year's assemblage or be stored in steel vats in the House's library of 150 reserve wines to be used in the blend of a future Krug Grande Cuvée and Krug Rosé.