Decanter New York Fine Wine Encounter masterclass: Krug

Julie Cavil is perhaps the perfect incarnation of the house of Krug. She is both a talented winemaker and an articulate embodiment of the Krug ideal – young, sophisticated, intelligent, and persuasive.

More than just friendly or agreeable, one has the sense that she is also driven. She has said of being a winemaker: ‘It is a profession of patience, of rigour, and the absence of compromise. I find this is not a constraint, but an asset’. 

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores the six Champagnes in the Krug masterclass

Krug’s chef de cave

Cavil began her career not in winemaking school but business school. She worked in public relations for the global advertising firm TBWA in Paris before returning to school to study oenology.

Her degree from the Université de Reims was followed by an internship at Moët. In 2006, she moved on to a coveted position as a member of the winemaking team at Krug alongside former cellarmaster Eric Lebel. Cavil was promoted to director of winemaking in 2017 and given the reins as chef de cave in 2020.

She has internalised the Krug story flawlessly and communicates it convincingly. If she conveys the vision of Joseph Krug’s Cuvée no. 1 and Cuvée no.2 with aplomb, she has also manifestly mastered the technical details.

In 1848, Joseph Krug said: ‘In principle, a good Champagne house ought to make two Champagnes of the same quality. Champagne Number 1: this composition should be altered every year to recreate the most generous expression of Champagne. Champagne Number 2: the Champagne of circumstances’. The former eventually became Grande Cuvée; the latter is Krug vintage.

The art of creation

The house has emphasised for many years the primacy of blending. In this Decanter Fine Wine Encounter masterclass, Cavil began the tasting with the 170th edition of Grande Cuvée, a blend of 195 separate components.

2014 is the youngest wine and accounts for 55% of the total, while reserve wines dating back to 1998 make up the balance. She does not shy away from vintage difficulties (2006 swung between cool and rainy and hot and dry), nor the struggles in the vineyard with the fruit fly drosophila suzukii.

To bolster the blend, she used base wines from the southern reaches of the Montagne de Reims in Ambonnay to round things out, noting: ‘We also had to rely on the 2013 harvest, and 2003, and 2012. In fact, it takes 20–25 years to craft a bottle of Krug’.

We jumped, rather dramatically, from the new Grande Cuvée to the 2006 vintage of Clos du Mesnil. Following Joseph Krug’s philosophy, there is no hierarchy of quality among the wines, simply a hierarchy of scarcity.

The house often has recourse to musical metaphors; it refers to Clos du Mesnil as ‘the soloist’, while Grande Cuvée is ‘the full orchestra’.

Although the Clos du Mesnil is one grape from one vineyard in one vintage, Cavail points out that there are still things to blend: ‘Although it is a small garden, there are six different dates of plantation,’ she says.

2006, like 2014, had challenges. It is considered a hot year with 23 days above 30°C. Cavil also finds the vintage ‘capricious’, noting that the vines suffered drought conditions followed by two months’ worth of rain in two weeks.

We moved next to the 2006 vintage Krug. Cavil notes that the vintage wine is a wide-ranging blend of grapes from different sectors of the region.

There are ‘ripe and opulent’ Chardonnays, Meunier from Leuvrigny and Sainte Gemme for freshness, and Pinot Noir from a variety of sources, among which she cites both the northern and the southern faces of the Montagne de Reims, as well as the large commune of Les Riceys in the Aube.

For a wine to qualify as a vintage, ‘there has to be a story to tell,’ says Cavil. She relates that her first job is to blend Grande Cuvée; her second responsibility is to maintain stocks of reserve wines, and only when those duties have been discharged will she compose a vintage wine.

In 2006, the story was ‘an incredible mouthfeel’. The 162nd edition Grande Cuvée – based on 2006 – is a blend of 163 wines. The composition of grapes was not far from the vintage wine, save for a bit more Meunier and a bit less Pinot Noir, as appropriate for a wine likely to be consumed earlier. 

The oldest of the reserve wines in the blend, dating from 1990, was Chardonnay from Le Mesnil which rounds out the assemblage and gives a supple, creamy texture.

2008 – a future legend

The tasting went into high gear as we moved from 2006 to the wines of 2008.

The 2008 vintage is renowned among collectors, and the storm of demand for the recently released 2008 vintage Krug has been nothing less than extraordinary. Collectors who could easily source multiple cases of previous Krug vintages now had to struggle to scrape together just a few bottles of 2008.

Krug releases its vintage wine later than almost every other producer, and the anticipation in the room was palpable. The house nickname for the vintage is ‘Classic Beauty’; I am sure many Krug lovers would agree.

Growing conditions in 2008 were ideal; cooler than some, but temperate, without any excess of heat or rain, and ideal at harvest. Cavil described the wine as being ‘marked by verticality and intensity’, and likened it to an oak tree, an apt metaphor.

The near-perfect conditions of 2008 delivered ideal base wines for the blend of the 164th Edition Grande Cuvée as well. These compose 68% of the assemblage, with reserve wines going back to 1990 composing the balance. 

Although this edition was initially seen as reserved, it blossomed in its glass, opening gracefully to provide a satisfying conclusion to a captivating masterclass.

See Charles’ tasting notes and scores for six timeless Krug Champagnes

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