Krug Edition 169 was composed around the harvest of 2013, a year that beautifully expressed the unique characters of some of the House’s iconic plots. The wine shows all the hallmarks of the great 2013 vintage; it is generous, expressive, full of flavours and has a fantastic aging potential similar to the very best Editions of Grande Cuvée we have tasted so far. We are not the only one to think so, as leading wine critic Jancis Robinson has awarded the wine a great 18.5+ points and praised its vibrancy and long aging potential. This new Edition is a blend of 146 wines from 11 different years, the youngest of which is from 2013 while the oldest dates back to 2000. The final composition is 43% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay, and 22% Meunier. A stay of around seven years in Krug’s cellars gives this Grande Cuvée its distinct expression and elegance. The wine tastes very youthfull at this early stage so it becomes ever more important to have some stashed away, gaining intensity, richness and complexity. This is already one of the most rewarding wines you can drink and extra years of aging just improve the experience exponentially. Grande Cuvée is a show-stoppingly gorgeous Champagne and it actually gets even better over decades, drinking stunningly well for far longer than the vast majority of vintage Prestige Cuvées from other Champagne Houses. Releases from the 1970s or the 1960s are out of this world. In a tasting last year William Kelley even gave a perfect 100 points to a release from the late 1940s! In his words “Krug’s aesthetic has remained strikingly consistent: indeed, it’s hard to think of any other house that has retained such a clearly defined identity decade after decade.” The new Edition 169 is already super pure and vibrant and will undoubtedly follow the same path.