The NV Grande Cuvée is absolutely stellar. This is one of the very best Grande Cuvées I can remember tasting. The flavors are bright, focused and beautifully delineated throughout, all of which make me think the wine will age well for many, many years. Lemon peel, white flowers, crisp pears, smoke and crushed rocks race across the palate in a vibrant, tense Champagne that epitomizes finesse. This release is based on the 2005 vintage and was disgorged in winter 2012/2013. The blend is: 44% Pinot Noir, 37% Chardonnay and 19% Meunier. Krug ID: 113001.
Oddly, the most consistent Krug wine I have been tasting lately is their non-vintage Brut Grand Cuvee, a big, boldly styled Champagne with smoky, earthy, pear, apple, and spicy aromas as well as flavors, loads of effervescence, and fine body and depth.
A powerful, well-toned Champagne, featuring coconut, toast, grapefruit and coffee aromas and flavors. There are plenty of bass notes, punctuated by crisp acidity, and it all comes together on the fine texture, with aftertaste of roasted hazelnut and coffee. Drink now through 2018.
A bit green and tart on the nose, even a bit astringent. Smoky nose and certainly very dense. It tasted much richer at the Decanter dinner with a tuna tartare and chilli and salt than it had done without food. Drink 2009-2012. Date tasted 13th Feb 09.
Very fine mousse. Sweetly spicy, soil-inflected aromas of nutmeg, nut oil, toasted biscuit, smoke and minerals, with the ineffable yeast autolysis character of the greatest Champagnes. Huge, rich and ripe; combines an almost exotic character with great nervosité (no one blends old and young juice more skillfully than Krug). Wonderfully full and thick but with vibrant, perfectly integrated acidity. Urgent yet suave. The finishing flavours of toasted bread, nuts, spices and oranges zest go on and on.
Oddly, the most consistent Krug wine I have been tasting lately is their non-vintage Brut Grand Cuvee, a big, boldly styled Champagne with smoky, earthy, pear, apple, and spicy aromas as well as flavors, loads of effervescence, and fine body and depth.
Recommended, but no tasting note given.
A complex, refined Champagne, with vanilla, coconut, lemon and mineral aromas and flavors. It's fresh and elegant, yet deep and persistent, evoking whole grain toast. It dovetails nicely on the lingering finish. Drink now through 2012.-
Krug does not make an ordinary non-vintage champagne but specializes exclusively in prestige cuvées, of which the multi-vintage Grande Cuvée is the flagship. Consistently producing champagne that is among the most admired in its region of origin, Krug is the only house to persist in barrel fermentation of its entire production of base wine, in old 205-l/54-gal casks. Wines from at least six and sometimes nine different vintages make up the blend for Grande Cuvée, one of the most distinctive and long lived of champagnes.
