If we could celebrate every Monday with Krug Champagne we’d have a different outlook on life–or maybe, the indulgence would start to seem less special? That’s the upbeat, and probably accurate, way to think about the budget realties that keep this wine in special occasion territory for most of us. (Another upbeat observation: for the same investment as a cult Cab, we can drink it five times as often!)

In this tasting video shot at the Clos de Mesnil vineyard, Krug CEO Maggie Henriquez parallels to musical performance, the differences between Krug’s three signature Champagnes: Clos de Mesnil, Vintage, and Grande Cuvee. The Clos de Mesnil is like a solo performance–one grape, Chardonnay, perfectly situated in one extraordinary vineyard, Clos de Mesnil. The Vintage, an expression of a single, distinctive harvest year, is like a sonata–a composition for an instrumental soloist where the “performer” in the case of Champagne is mother nature’s riff on the weather during that particular growing season. And the Grande Cuvee is a symphony–a blended “performance” of grapes, vineyards and harvest years all conducted into a taste expression that always makes me want an encore.

It also lured me off Wall Street, as I wrote in my Great Wine Made Simple Book–not to wander wine country like a Dead Head looking for my next bubbly fix, but to indeed travel to Europe to learn enough about wine that I could hopefully, someday, make a living at it. Things worked out. And my first stop on that trip? The Champagne region. I could not visit Krug because I had no wheels and so could only visit Champagne houses within walking distance of the Reims train station. I would say that made this tasting for me, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity–but, Maggie invited me back in ten years to re-taste the vintage with her. It’s a date!