Krug gets caught over-sulfuring

Breaking News:

The Drinks Business (a pub that sometimes does get it wrong) reports:

 Five batches of the company’s Krug Champagne have been withdrawn as consumers allergic or intolerant of sulphites have been advised not to drink the products and the Food Standards Agency has issued an allergy alert.

The products withdrawn are: all sizes of Krug Grande Cuvee; and 75cl bottles of Krug Rose, Krug Vintage 2000, Krug Clos du Mesnil 2000 and Krug Clos d’Ambonnay 1998.

The official Krug response: sulfur is a natural byproduct of fermentation. Well, yes, but show me the wine that produces maximum legal amounts and I'll show you a tab of petrochemical Campden at work.

Actually, at first read I thought, wow, they over-sulfited the wines. But no, they were just buttonholed because they neglected to stick the warning label on. In a house as corporate as Krug, that is a surprising flub.  Someone's head is going to go down the bowling alley.

Make sure you read the comments, they're hilarious.

Comments

[Gabrieljagle]

so what were the sulfite levels on this wine? did they actually 'over-sulfer', or did they use moderate amounts of sulfer, and just get fined for not writing 'contains sulfites' on the label? are we talking 20ppm? 50? 100?

[Alicefeiring]

Hi there and thans for stopping by. This was purely a label issue. They forgot to slap on the warning on the bottles. There have been bottling issues for a while, ever since production increased, but that's more about what's in the bottle rather than what's on it. If I would have to guess, I'd assume they're at maximum or near max levels, so their response that sulfites are naturally occurring in the fermentation process, without citing the future addition to perhaps 200 ppm or over, is a little disingenuous.