Krug

Founded in Reims in 1843 by Joseph Krug, the house is built on one unusual idea: that a great Champagne shouldn't depend on the year.

The flagship, Grande Cuvee, is re-blended from scratch each edition using around 120 individual wines spanning more than ten vintages — an extensive library of reserve wines built specifically to smooth out whatever a single year gets wrong.

Clos du Mesnil is the exception that proves the rule. In the early 1970s, brothers Remi and Henri Krug acquired a single walled plot in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger — walled since 1698 — and used it to do the opposite of everything else the house stands for: one plot, one grape, one harvest, bottled alone. Even in a good year it's barely 13,000 bottles, and a single bottle regularly clears $1,800-2,000.