Champagne, France with Krug

Sorry for the late post!
I had extremely slow wifi the last two weeks and had trouble even sending one email, posting photos was absolutely NOT an option.

I continued my champagne tour with a private invite-only tour of one of the oldest champagne houses in Reims, Krug champagne. There is no shop or tourists about - a rare treat reserved for those personally invited, thanks to our chef friend who has ties with Macau (thanks Guillaume and Juliana!) . It was created by Joseph Krug in 1843 and is known for marketing the faulty 'dirty champagne' to something prestigious and more expensive 'rose champagne.'

Entrance

Krug is responsible for making the pink tinted rose champagne into something all females ask for, sometimes at double the price of the original yellowish champagne. To think they created an upscale market for something they used to throw away for being unpure of color was very interesting.

Joseph Krug and our wines

They showed us the manufacturing plant as well as history of wine, followed by tasting of their 5 signature champagnes. Their classic champagne 'Grand Cuvee' contains a blend of over 120 different wines with over 20 years of total aging years, defined by the wine critics as one of the best champagnes in the world.

They pre soak the barrels with water prior to storing wines to keep them waterproof.

New barrels of young wines

Krug uses various techniques they were more than happy to share with us for their champagnes. From creation of barrels to having high-tech tanks age young wines to perfection prior to barreling for a minimum of 9 years, it was an intriguing tour. With mandatory goggle-and-gloves attire of workers, it felt like a pristine factory in contrast to the tradition-filled aged barrels in the caves.

Tanks of freshly-barreled wines

The main cave is where they store all of their wine barrels and bottles to age. It's a huge area, about 2km long! There's also a lot of history here, with the winemakers and families taking refuge in WW1 down in the caves and precious wines dating all the way back in 1880's.

Then finally, my favorite part: tasting!
They had a lovely set up of 5 different champagnes of their classics and their best. Included were some ham and bread specially made for Krug tasting as well as a new innovation - music pairing. We listened to specific songs and the history of each champagne as we were tasting. What an experience.

Afterwards, we went off to the city center for the cathedral as well as to purchase some of these wines we tasted. Reims Cathedral, which looks very much like Notre Dame in Paris. It is a famous architecture that's so precious, it's been granted special permit from the Germans to spare the building during bombing in WW1. This is where they crowned all French kings and recently celebrated 800th birthday in 2011.

And last but not least, the actual purchase. Since none of the actual wineries sell their wine, you must go to nearby stores where they are permitted to sell the wine or champagne. One of the decent ones such as Les Caves du Forum were hidden in the corner of a building down an actual cave. They had a great selection in an authentic shop!