Krug Grand Cuvee Champagne 173e
99 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com
The tightness and tension of this is impressive considering the youngest wine from this is 2015 (hot and dry year), with some wines going back to 2000. Ginger and orange zest. Some creme brulee. It's medium-bodied with apple, pie crust and floral character. It's salty and zesty yet, at the same time, complex and gorgeous. Chamomile and other floral teas highlight everything. Turns rich and flavorful at the finish. Terrific release. Really takes off at the end. Drink or hold.
97 Falstaff Magazine
Pale golden yellow, silver reflections, fine, subtle mousse. A hint of orange zest, fine yellow apple fruit, a hint of greengage, with fine smoky herbal spice. Full-bodied, white peach fruit, a hint of nashi pear, racy acidity, lime touch, slightly salty on the finish, a well-balanced food wine with good grip, displays length and aging potential.
97 Roger Voss - Wine Enthusiast
Deliciously balanced, this Champagne is impressive. The iconic wine is in its 171st blend, meaning it combines vintages for the best result for each bottling, not a specific vintage. The 171st essence is dry, while also having fine textured fruit. This is a magnificent wine and worth aging for another year.
96+ John Gilman - View from the Cellar
The Krug Grande Cuvée '171ème Édition' is from the base year of 2015. The final cépages is forty-five percent pinot noir, thirty-seven percent chardonnay and eighteen percent pinot meunier. It includes fully forty-two percent reserve wines in this iteration, with the wines stretching all the way back to the 2000 vintage. It was disgorged in the first months of 2022 after six years aging sur latte. The wine is supremely elegant on both the nose and palate, with the bouquet wafting from the glass in a beautifully complex blend of apple, pear, fresh apricot, brioche, a complex blend of chalky soil tones, gently musky floral tones, almond, a lovely touch of buttery oak and incipient notes of caraway seed in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, precise and full-bodied, with superb depth of fruit, lovely soil undertow, very refined mousse, great balance, snappy acids and a very, very long, complex and utterly seamless finish. Though this is still most emphatically still a young wine, its impeccable balance makes it all too easy to drink today! I would try to leave it alone in the cellar for five to ten years and really let it hit its apogee, but it is not going to be an easy wine with which to exercise self-restraint! 2023-2085.
95 Decanter
Two years on from its disgorgement, this 2015-based edition has settled beautifully, showing all the sunniness of the base year with its mandarin and apricot plushness, surprisingly smooth and silky up front before settling into its broad, inviting range of praline, cappuccino and bitter almond aromatics and subtle fruit skin chewiness. It's a punchy, fulsome edition thanks to the base year's intensity, but it has been beautifully tamed into a characteristically suave and multilayered Grande Cuvée. A blend of 131 wines, with reserves back to the year 2000.
95 Antonio Galloni - Vinous
The NV Grande Cuvée 171ème Édition, based on the 2015 vintage, is every bit as impressive as it was the last time I tasted it. Creamy, layered and resonant, the 171 is seriously impressive. The style is one that favors tension over volume. Lemon peel, white flowers and white pepper open first. Hints of marzipan, tangerine peel and spice add an exotic flair to this mid-weight, understated Grand Cuvée. Floral notes and bright acids perk up the finish. The 171 is wonderfully fresh and vibrant from start to finish. The blend is 45% Pinot Noir, 37% Chardonnay and 18% Meunier, vintages 2015 through 2000. Krug ID: 122013. Disgorged: Winter: 2021-2022.
