Ratings & Tasting Notes:
97 points Jeb Dunnuck
Review Date: 03/2021
A beautiful Champagne, yet one that needs bottle age, the NV Grand Cuvee 168ème Edition comes mostly from the 2012 vintage (a good vintage) and has gorgeous apple blossom and stone fruits intermixed with classic Krug toasted brioche, toasted almond, white flowers, and honeysuckle aromatics. Just gorgeous on the palate as well, it’s concentrated and has a rich, backward texture, bright acidity, and great finish. It takes lots of air to show at its best today, but do your best to hide bottles for 3-4 years. You’ll be rewarded and it will evolve gracefully for another two decades or more.
97 points James Suckling
Review Date: 10/2020
Quite rich aromas of cooked apples, peaches, pie crust and biscuit. Some dried pineapple. Full bodied with layers of fruit and a really lively backbone of acidity and energy. Really zippy and energetic at the end. A beauty. Based on the 2012 harvest, but 13 different years in the blend. Drink now.
96 points Decanter
Review Date: 05/2020
A gentle gold with discreet yet persistent mousse and aromatics of spring meadows, lemon sherbet and barley sugar; the wine is pure and softly powerful, youthful energy finely poised, somewhat cautious after so many years in the chalky cellars. The reserve wines, Pinot Noir from Verzenay and Chardonnay from Avize especially, are subtle in support, vivacious despite their relative maturity, contributing to an ensemble which is hitherto dominated by red fruit, courtesy of the superb Pinot Noir, and a colourful tension. Behind that there are whispers of honey, quince and posset… and with so much more to come; but the finish, happily in these days of privation, takes one to wherever one may wish to go. (SF)
Cult Wines International Notes:
The bottle ID: 418038 indicates that this is the 168th edition.
Composed around the harvest of 2012, Krug Grande Cuvée 168ème Édition is a blend of 198 wines from 11 different years. The youngest is from the year 2012 and the oldest dates back to 1996.
The final composition of this champagne is 52% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay and 13% Meunier.
In all, over 20 years of careful craftsmanship were necessary to enjoy Krug Grande Cuvée 168ème Édition.
Maison Krug, founded in Reims in 1843 by Joseph Krug, was established on a radical, visionary philosophy: to produce the absolute best Champagne possible every single year, completely defying the unpredictable variations of the annual climate. Rejecting the standard industry hierarchy that placed single-vintage Champagnes at the pinnacle, Joseph sought to create an ultimate, multi-vintage prestige cuvée. This concept evolved into the iconic Krug Grande Cuvée, the house’s foundational masterpiece. Rather than relying on a single harvest, Krug operates under a strict “one plot, one wine” philosophy, vinifying hundreds of individual vineyard parcels separately. Every year, the Chef de Cave conducts the monumental task of blending around 120 to 200 distinct base wines spanning more than ten different vintages—some of which are aged up to 15 years in Krug’s vast library. This meticulous process acts as a masterfully conducted symphony, where the extensive reserve wines act as the “seasoning” to achieve a signature profile of immense depth, opulent complexity, and a toasted, brioche-driven richness that cannot be replicated by a single year alone.
Because Krug Grande Cuvée is an annual re-creation composed of a vast tapestry of seasons rather than a single year’s harvest, it does not have a traditional, single “growing season.” Instead, each bottle is designated by an “Édition” number, which counts every year the founder’s dream has been fulfilled since 1843. The foundation of any given Édition is built around a specific base year—which dictates the baseline climate, yield, and vibrant acidity of the youngest wines—while the older library reserves are strategically selected to counteract that specific year’s natural deficiencies or climatic excesses. For example, if a base year suffers from a damp summer or scorching heat, the cellarmaster draws heavily upon contrasting, chiseled, or voluptuous reserve wines from the cellar to restore perfect balance. Once the intricate blending of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier is complete, the wine undergoes an arduous maturation process, resting on its lees for at least six to seven years in the deep chalk cellars of Reims. This extensive aging brings a profound patina of elegance, structural tension, and longevity, ensuring that regardless of the year it was bottled, each glass of Grande Cuvée delivers the house’s legendary, unchanging promise of ultimate generosity.
Bottle Size:
375 mL – Half Bottle
Storage History:
Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.
Condition:
Outstanding condition.
Please note: The condition of the bottle you will receive is accurately reflected by the one shown in the images.
