Krug Champagne Launches Les Créations 2008

Krug Champagne Launches Les Créations 2008
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Krug Champagne Launches Les Créations 2008

The legendary Champagne house has just released its 2008 vintage, cellar master Julie Cavil hails its “paradoxical harmony of contrasting flavours.”

It was cellar master Julie Cavil's first trip after this year's harvest: she came to London to launch the long-awaited Krug Les Créations 2008. To put the wine in context, the current release, Krug Grande Cuvée 169ème Édition, based on the 2013 vintage, Les Créations 2006 and Grande Cuvée 164ème Édition, also based on the 2008 vintage, were tasted alongside.

Joseph Krug's philosophy

Cavil reiterated the philosophies for these wines: the Grande Cuvée exists to create "a Champagne of undisputed quality every year, regardless of vintage," she said, recalling the principles laid down by the company's founder Joseph Krug in 1843. Whereas the vintage wines of the house, called Les Créations, are the "cuvées of the circumstances, the music of the year," Cavil said.

The magic of blending

It is the Krug way to blend across grape varieties, villages and, in the case of Grande Cuvée, across vintages from a library of current and reserve wines. The 169th edition the Grande Cuvée is thus blended from 146 wines from 11 years, based on 2013 but reaching back to 2000. The 164th edition, based on 2008, was blended from 127 wines from 11 different years reaching back to 1990.

Cavil said that in order to achieve the widest possible blending base, she always told the grape growers: "Please cultivate all the differences, try to obtain the highest expression possible. We want the perfect citrus from La Justice in Avize, that red fruit coulis fom Les Riceys... to create the highest expression Champagne can give us." 

The 2008 vintage

About 2008, Cavil said: "It was amongst the coolest years, there were no extremes and theh ripening of the grapes took place slowly and evenly. It is a wine of great elegance, great intensity, great structure, very straight, precise, austere, long."

Each vintage receives a soubriquet and 2008 was dubbed "the classic beauty." The 2006 vintage, from a warmer, sunnier year in contrast was christened "capricious indulgence." Both wines do these names more than justice: "classic beauty" is an understatement for such a momentous wine that is already expressive but will remain pristine for decades.

Read the tasting notes:

2008 Krug Vintage Brut

2006 Krug Vintage Brut

Krug Grande Cuvée 164ème Edition Brut NV

Krug Grande Cuvée 169ème Edition Brut NV

Anne Krebiehl MW
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