Max Richter on Krug Every Note Counts, Hamnet Oscar Nomination and More

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Maison Krug is turning the 2008 vintage into a musical score. 

At London’s Roundhouse last Tuesday, the storied Champagne house unveiled the newest installment of its “Every Note Counts” series, a multisensory collaboration between Krug cellar master Julie Cavil and composer Max Richter that pairs three 2008 cuvées with three original musical works — performed live by orchestra and followed by a dinner from Krug Ambassade Chef Adam Handling. 

For Richter, best known for his genre-blurring classical compositions and film scores (most recently earning an Oscar nod for “Hamnet“) writing music inspired by champagne offered a new kind of prompt. “Every project has a starting point,” he tells Variety from a London hotel following the global reveal. “Obviously, I work mostly in concert music and records and movies. So I’m used to that as an origin. But this was a different way to begin.” 

Rather than composing from a blank slate, Richter immersed himself in Krug’s world. “I spent a lot of time over in the vineyards, tasting all the different things, being in the cellars, just experiencing the whole world of Krug really,” he says. “Creativity is all about asking questions and curiosity.” 

One of those questions was deceptively simple: What does a bubble sound like? 

“When I’m working on a project, I’m always trying to find new ways to think, new ways to look at a question,” Richter says. “I thought one of the things is like, ‘Well, what is the experience of a bubble?’ Imagine you’re a bubble. What’s going on around you?” The answer, he suggested, can be heard in rising piano motifs that mirror effervescence in the first of the three songs he composed for the series.

The three resulting compositions — “Clarity,” “Ensemble” and “Sinfonia” — correspond to Krug Clos d’Ambonnay 2008, Krug 2008 and Krug Grande Cuvée 164ème Édition, each translating the texture and structure of the wine into sound. 

For Cavil, the collaboration felt instinctive. “Max is a Krug lover,” she said, noting that she was drawn to his fusion of the classic and modern worlds. That balance, she adds, mirrors Krug’s own philosophy: honoring tradition while continually reinterpreting it — particularly resonant for the 2008 vintage, often described as a classical year in Champagne. “Max’s willingness to experiment, and reinterpret classical forms with subtle twists, resonates with me,” Cavil says. “The year 2008 is a classical vintage with a twist.” Founded in 1843 by Joseph Krug, the maison has long prioritized individuality of plot and the meticulous blending of reserve wines to achieve what it calls “the most generous expression of Champagne.”

The immersive unveiling at the Roundhouse translated that philosophy into live performance: guests experienced Richter’s three pieces in sequence, accompanied by tastings of the corresponding wines, in what Krug described in a press release as a “recomposition of the year 2008 — not as a moment frozen in time, but as one that resonates across senses.” An accompanying documentary chronicling the collaboration is also now available online here.

Beyond the brand partnership, the event arrives at a pivotal moment for Richter. The composer — known for his genre-blurring solo albums and scores for projects including “Shutter Island,” “Arrival” and “The Leftovers” — recently received his first Oscar nomination for his work on “Hamnet.”

“You find these things out nowadays by your phone blowing up,” he says about the moment he found out about his nomination last month. “‘Hamnet’ is really beautiful. The whole thing is really special. Chloe is an amazing director, really a visionary. The cast and Jesse [Buckley] is extraordinary in it. I mean, really a performance, really special performance. So it’s a magical project, and they don’t come along very often, so it’s great to be part of it. It’s great to be able to also support the ‘Hamnet’ village, because it really is a village.”

Amid all the noise in his life, though, “Every Note Counts” argues for intentionality — in both music and winemaking. “It’s about elevating a simple thing,” he says. “We live in a very busy world. We’re saturated with experiences. I think a big part of being a human being today is about recovering a kind of intentionality and going deeper, rather than wider.”

At the Roundhouse, this depth came from a performance that he saw as more of “asking a question of the world,” he says. “It’s half of a conversation: What about this?”