As any wine buff will tell you, it’s virtually impossible to secure an invitation to Le Salon des 400 Vins, the famed tasting room of the House of Krug on the 1843-established Krug family estate in Reims, the Champagne region’s unofficial capital.

So standing inside the recently refurbished salon – its back wall lined with 400 multicoloured, spotlit wine bottles representing the 250 base wines and 150 reserves that help create each blend of the Grand Krug Cuvee – is a pinch yourself moment. Not least given some of the bottles date to the 1880s.