Krug is for lovers
We got to know Julie Cavil on a cool April morning in 2019. Back then, we were standing together in wellies, armed with glasses, in one of the most famous vineyards in the world, the Clos du Mesnil, just 1.84 hectares in size, where Maison Krug produces the famous Blanc de Blancs champagne.
Under the watchful eye (and nose) of cellar master Julie Cavil, Krug has started a programme pairing its champagne with one simple ingredient each year, and commissioning chefs to create complementary recipes that elevate it.
At that time, Julie was still the right-hand woman of Krug’s long-time cellarmaster Eric Lebel before she was finally promoted to Chef de Cave herself in 2020. One of the most prestigious jobs in the world of champagne, Julie is also the first woman to hold this position since the house was founded by Joseph Krug in 1843. The most recent highlight in Julie’s extraordinary career, however, was undoubtedly the opening of the newly built Krug Winery, named Joseph 2.0, in the prestigious Grand Cru village of Ambonnay in April 2024, which offers much more space than the old cellars under the Maison in Rue Coquebert in Reims. However, the bottles will continue to mature in the coronation city of the French kings. It was, of course, no coincidence that Ambonnay was chosen as the location, as the village is not only famous for its full-bodied Pinot noir wines, but the winery is also just a stone’s throw away from where Krug’s second single-vineyard champagne, Krug Clos d’Ambonnay, grows – these vineyards only cover an area of 0.68 hectares.
It took around seven years to plan and build the project, which coincidentally is exactly the amount of time it normally takes from the harvest of the current year to the release of the Krug Grande Cuvée based on this year. In total, crafting a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvée involves over 20 years of craftsmanship. It is the liquid calling card of the Maison. In addition to the single-vineyard wines already mentioned, Krug also has a vintage and a rosé, as well as highly sought-after late releases in its portfolio. However, Julie Cavil’s full attention is focused on the Krug Grande Cuvée. ‘In the 1840s, Joseph Krug dreamed of creating a champagne whose quality did not depend on the vintage of the current year, but was meant to always represent the most generous embodiment of what the respective terroirs, the different grape varieties and all the distinctive winemaker personalities of the region have to offer. That was his vision. We are still very much committed to precisely this goal when making the Grande Cuvée,’ explains Julie.
The Maison Krug traditionally uses wooden casks for maturing some of the base wines.
One of its most recent releases is the 172ème Édition. Its creation was based on the not-so-easy harvest of 2016 and yet is still a masterful cuvée of a total of 146 wines from 11 different years, the oldest being from 1998. Elegant on the nose with notes of lavender, roasted almonds and white blossoms, the wine bears the typical Krug citric notes on the palate, as well as a hint of violets and eucalyptus. In fact, the proportion of reserve wines in this Grande Cuvée is relatively high at around 42% – as is usually the case for Krug – but it is precisely the Maison’s clever stockpiling policy that allows Julie and her team to compose quite astonishing wines, even in supposedly difficult years. Speaking of composing, the Maison launched Krug Echoes back in 2013, a series of events for which internationally renowned artists and musicians are commissioned by the champagne house to either compose their own pieces or create a playlist with suitable beats to capture the spirit of each new edition of Krug Grande Cuvée or the latest vintage champagne. Whether it be classical, jazz or electro, there are no restrictions on the genre of music. On the fringes of one of these events, we once asked Julie, who originally started her career in a large Parisian advertising agency, whether the whole thing wasn’t more of a marketing stunt. Julie disagreed. ‘We have actually been working closely with the University of Oxford for years. They have discovered that the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and tasting are closely linked. This means that hearing and tasting are ideally suited for synaesthetic experiences.
Joseph Krug founded Maison Krug 1843, driven by his understanding that the true essence of champagne is pleasure itself. Olivier Krug is the sixth-generation director of the Krug Champagne house.
It is also much easier to describe a champagne to people from different cultures and with different taste biographies through music than through words, because music is a universal language that is understood all over the world.
In other words, with music you can make statements where there are no words to describe them.
A few years ago, my predecessor Eric Lebel worked together with a composer from IRCAM – the French Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music – to create an immersive listening experience that captures the unmistakable character of our base wines.
Once you have consciously experienced this, your perception of champagne changes forever.’ But how does Julie see her role as Chef de Cave when faced with so much tradition – can she bring anything new to the table?
Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles: in the KRUG Lounge at the Dolder Grand in Zurich, fine dining Chef Heiko Nieder serves his gourmet specialities in a classic, yet down-to-earth style – signature currywurst, truffle fries and much more. Open until September 2025.
‘Throwing everything out and telling the team we’re going to start doing things differently from now on just to satisfy your own ego is easy to do. But anyone who understands their job in this way would simply not have understood Krug’s philosophy. For us, it’s all about continuity through change. It’s not by chance that our new winery is called Joseph 2.0. Traditional and modern are not concepts we see as being contradictory or opposites, instead they complement each other. Basically, I have the same role as the conductor of an orchestra at his podium. The 250 or so different base wines of a vintage are the new additions to my orchestra, while the 150 reserve wines in the cellar are the veterans.
And I must listen very carefully to every single rehearsal. Are there any potential soloists among the new wines that stand out in particular? If so, they maybe have the potential for a vintage champagne. Or would they best serve as team players, forming the basis of our Grande Cuvée? This is also where the veteran musicians come into play – to use the same metaphor – giving the wine additional depth, harmony and tension.’ And which bottle would Ms Cavil open in private if it were the last one she was allowed to drink in her life? ‘That’s a terrifying notion,’ Julie says while laughing, ‘but seriously, I don’t have to think twice – a well-aged Krug Grande Cuvée from the magnum.’ Santé!
By the way: the new 173ème Édition of Grande Cuvée just hit the shelves.
Words Thomas Hauer
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