Krug Grande Cuvée 167éme Édition

Based on the difficult 2011 harvest, this Champagne used 191 different vin de réserve from 13 different years.

I am often asked how many senses are used in tasting a wine. Judging by the technical sheets provided by producers it would appear that those of sight, smell and taste are more than sufficient. And yet, after years of taking notes, first in my Moleskine and how on my iPhone, I have become more than convinced that no matter how efficient these senses may be, the other words that I added where those that described and completed the portrait of a wine. Words that would be out of place here on DoctorWine and perhaps mocked by picky purists but for me are evocative and help me set the wine to memory.

Given that since 1843 Krug has little to prove, except the ability to deal with any adversity through a precise attention to detail that is the result of a near maniacal perfectionism, the senses needed for tasting one become four with the fourth that of hearing through music. It was for this reason that at the official presentation to wine experts of Krug Grande Cuvée 167ème Édition, aside from Olivier Krug – the sixth generation of the family and Maison director - there was the Belgian musician Ozark Henry and not just as entertainment but as a leading player in the tasting. It was his task to translate into sounds the entire creative process involved in the genesis of Krug Grande Cuvée 167èmeÉdition, interpreting its freshness and structure, the fruit and persistence, into sounds relating length, depth and height.

Inside the Chiostro delle Umiliate in Milan, first with our eyes closed and then with glass in hand, we were challenged by the Maison to rethink tasting as a totalizing moment, one in which the four senses are totally involved. The experiment was so successful that one could almost physically sense a tangible presence of the music, one capable of using the vibration of each component, first disarranged and then reassembled, to describe the grapes that compose Krug Grande Cuvée 167ème Édition.

The 167ème Édition is a “recreation” of the first one made by founder Joseph Krug and it was based on the difficult year 2011, when the Chardonnay did not have the brilliance of the great harvests, the Meunier was rich yet a bit tired and the Pinot Noir lacked the structure and boldness to serve as the framework of a great Champagne. While above average, it needed greater complexity in order to become the maximum expression of Champagne that Joseph Krug achieved when he create this Grande Cuvée. This necessitated the use of vin de reserve, 191 different wines from 13 harvests between 2011 and 1995, which after eight years of “practice” in the bottle are ready to perform in the glass today, ensuring an extraordinary performance already now and for years to come.

The sensorial experience was completed by the one of the most skilled hands and brilliant minds in Italy’s wine and food sector today, Giuseppe Iannotti from the Kresios restaurant in Telese, in the province of Benevento, who offered a winning menu that was a succession of acute and persistent notes.

Krug Grande Cuvée 167ème Édition 

97/100 – 175€

A blend of 47% Pinot Noir, 36% Chardonnay and 17% Meunier in which 42% is vin de resérve from 13 different years between 2011 and 1995 that sat seven years on the lees to be disgorged in the first quarter of 2018 with a dosage of around 5g/l (all details are in the Krug App KrugID 118013).

A bright golden color and a bouquet that is an explosion of elegant intensity with a citrus vein of tangerine and bergamot. The aroma then becomes a compendium of dried fruit, sweet spice, ginger and barley with pulsating sensations of iodine and graphite with a return of brioche and citron. The creamy mouthfeel is in fact silky with citrus and buttery notes in a winning dialectic that enlivens a clear and present structure while the finish is both solid and ethereal at the same time. A great performance for an extremely Krug Grande Cuvée.

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