Olivier Krug Debuts the 2008 Krug Clos du Mesnil
This past Monday, I was invited to lunch by Olivier Krug, who was visiting California with his team for the debut of the 2008 Krug "Clos du Mesnil" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne. We went to Spruce, in the beautiful Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, and had a great time catching up while enjoying some excellent food and unforgettable Champagne. To call this 2008 release anticipated would be a gigantic understatement—it is one of the very last from this vintage, which I consider the best of my career, and from one of the most important vineyard sites in Champagne.
Olivier was very proud to tell me that his team is working more professionally than ever, and that they haven’t had an accident that caused a work stoppage in three years at Krug. Wineries can be dangerous places, and he cares deeply for the team that makes some of the greatest wines on the planet. In 2022, they were blessed with a very successful harvest, and chef de cave Julie Cavil made 299 separate vins clairs for their future 178ème Édition, reserve program, rosé, and hopefully some vintage and single vineyard wines.
Krug’s ID program is something that I have written about a lot on this blog. Every bottle has number on the back of it that you can enter on their website to learn all the facts on the wine. They are industry leaders in transparency, and I encourage all readers to check out one or two of the IDs below. It is my reference for all the facts on these wines and having it available allowed our conversation at lunch not to be totally consumed by technical details.
We started the lunch with a half-bottle of Krug "Grande Cuvée" 170ème Édition Brut Champagne, ID 320021. It is amazing to me to think that this little half bottle has 12 vintages in it, spanning 1998 to 2014. It was disgorged in summer of 2020 and composed of 51% Pinot Noir, 38% Chardonnay, and 11% Meunier. Out of half bottle one can already find the nuttiness in this wine, which is much tighter and more linear out of 750ml. The combination of refreshing chalk and rich brioche in this wine is beguiling, the consistency of their execution is hard to believe.
We then moved on to the debut of the 2008 Krug "Clos du Mesnil" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne, ID 321045. This wine will be so highly allocated that I am bound to disappoint far too many of our Krug loving customers, and I felt badly for using up a bottle for our lunch. That bad feeling went away as soon as I tasted it. Olivier told us that the harvest for this precious 4.5-acre walled vineyard began on September 18th, the same day as the financial crisis. The beauty of the grapes was a contrast to the ugly news—he said he would never forget that feeling. After 14 years, this wine is still almost water-clear, and, on the nose and in the mouth, it is clearly built for the very distant future—I could detect no toasty aromas even after all that time aging on the lees. The oak was completely consumed by the wine, and pure Chardonnay fruit—citric, incisive, and bright—defined the wine. The finish was incalculably long, chalky and driven, but not at all austere. For those who are lucky enough to find a bottle and able to buy it, it will be one of the greatest bottles in your cellar!
Afterwards we tasted the 2008 Krug Brut Champagne, ID 220019, a wine that will be competing for the honor of the greatest wine from the greatest vintage of my career for many, many decades to come. At Krug, their nickname for this wine is “classic beauty,” and it delivers on the promise. I have been fortunate enough to drink this wine on four occasions now, and this time I found it to be at its tightest. If you have some in your cellar, I recommend waiting a few years to open it. This bottle was disgorged after 12 years on the lees in spring of 2020 and composed of 53% Pinot Noir, 25% Meunier, and 23% Chardonnay. For a wine aged this long and vinified 100% in small, old oak barrels, I was surprised to find the dominate aromatic note to be pamplemousse or grapefruit. The structure, the power and the length are undeniable. This is going to be one of the greatest Krug vintage offerings of all time.
The last wine of the lunch was the Krug "Grande Cuvée" 164ème Édition Brut Champagne, ID 316037. As usual, it is the oldest Grand Cuvée of any Krug tasting that is my favorite of the day. Anyone who works for Krug will tell you that “there is no hierarchy at Krug,” and that the pricing of the bottles is linked to rarity, not quality. They will also tell you that the Grande Cuvée is the hardest of all the wines to make. Take them seriously. This wine was disgorged after eight years on the lees in summer of 2016 and then aged for another six years on its cork. The oldest wine in this blend of 11 vintages is 1990 and the youngest is 2008 and it is composed of 48% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay and 17% Meunier. The time on the cork made this masterful wine open for business now, with incredible hazelnut depth, panettone toast aromas, and a briny minerality that is carried off to infinity on the finish by the acidity of 2008. If you have some of this in your cellar, pull it out for a special occasion now or keep it for as long as you would like.
A special Krug toast to you,
- Gary Westby, Champagne Buyer