Champagne, Uncorked: The House of Krug and the Timeless Allure of the World’s Most Celebrated Drink

Food and wine writer Tardi (Romancing the Vine) takes an uncritical approach to an, admittedly, rarely criticized wine. The book begins with the 2012 harvest and gives readers an unprecedented look into the process of crushing grapes, fermenting, tasting, blending, bottling, and aging that leads to the Krug Grande Cuvée, one of the most prestigious non-vintage champagnes on the market. A second thread carries readers from the earliest days of Champagne as a wine-growing region of monks and small farms, through a developing landscape of personalities and world events, to the modern state of the drink as a luxury good, highly regulated and, though still created by many family vineyards, often controlled by massive corporations. While the handling of Krug often reads as embellished advertising, the details of the winemaking process, as well as the stories of the region’s history, are compelling and interesting. The language vacillates between simple and technical, sometimes leaving a reader to wonder who Tardi’s intended audience is, but the work carries a wealth of information for a reader at any level of wine expertise and is more accessible than the Grande Cuvée, if not quite as effervescent. (May)