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BookmarkVeuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life—for the first time—the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label : Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who, after her husband's death, defied convention by assuming the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured together. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world's first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.
As much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman, The Widow Clicquot is the captivating true story of a legend and a visionary.
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I have just finished “The Widow Cliquot” about Barbe-Nicole Cliquot, who when she became a widow (veuve) established the vineyard that became Veuve Cliquot, changed the way champagne was made and marketed, and nurtured it into the industrial powerhouse that provides us with the magnificent champagne that I am SO fond of today
A fantastic story of a woman with a business brain and ambition at a time when there were no powerful women outside of the aristocracy. A recommended book that is not only about a fascinating woman, but also about the process of making champage. I think I could do with a glass of it right NOW!
I really enjoyed learning about the Widow Clicquot and the development of the Champagne industry. I think of this book as having 3 acts…The first is a fascinating personal experience woven through the history of the French Revolution. The second outlines the amazing events of a strong woman taking over a business enterprise and building it to greater heights in a time of near total repression of women in business. Whereas the author does a great job on the first two acts, the third is a bit repetitive both in language and fact. I found it meandered a bit and was more reminiscent than analytical. Still, I highly recommend this book as a case study in widows surprising the world by taking over their family businesses. Other examples that interest me include Gert Boyle of Columbia Sportswear and Katharine Graham of the “Washington Post.”
An excellent book with great information concerning the life and times that made the chapagnes of today possible.
Upon the death of her husband, Francois Clicquot , Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin joined Alexandre Jerome Fourneux in a business partnership in 1806 and founded Veuve Clicquot Fourneaux & Co.. She immediately took an active role in the business, participating in the crafting of her own Champagne and within four years was in charge of the business which became Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin & Co.. The Widow Clicquot’s risky decision to arrange to transport her wines from the 1811 or “comet” vintage to Russia for sale after the fall of Napoleon saved her company and led to the internationalization of Champagne. She continued at the helm of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin & Co. until 1841, when at the age of 64 she retired. To this day, Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin is the only elite Champagne house with a woman (Madame Cécile Bonnefond) at the helm.
In the 1800s everyone knew of the Widow Clicquot, but few understand anything about the woman behind the yellow label. Scant details of her life have been preserved. Her personal letters did not survive and there is little biographical record. It is to the author’s credit that she was able to recreate the life story and provide new insight about this unique woman. Mazzeo does write at times with considerable speculation, but her grasp of history makes the whole story very plausible. The book has extensive scholarly references and bibliography, but only one photo of the Widow Clicquot in her later years and no photos of early Champagne bottles or labels.
This book is valuable for the educational information about Champagne that is interjected throughout its pages. Here are just a few of the little known facts about Champagne that I learned:
* Champagne was discovered by the British, not the French. Sparkling wine appeared in England by the 1660s, decades before it was sold in France. Wine was shipped from France to England in wooden casks. The British wanted to better preserve the wine so they put the wine in bottles where the wine underwent a secondary fermentation. The British added sugar to the bottles, creating Champagne by the 1670s, a decade before it was produced in France.
* Early on, in the 1790s, Champagne was a dessert wine, very sweet, served cold and brownish pink in color due to added brandy and skins of grapes. There were only blanc de noirs (white and red grapes).
* Dom Pierre Perignon did not invent Champagne. That was a marketing ploy by the region’s Champagne producers at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris. In reality, Dom Perignon was given the task of getting rid of bubbles that were ruining still wines of the time. A secondary fermentation occurred in wines stored over the winter in sealed wood casks and when the weather warmed in the spring, a secondary fermentation occurred creating bubbles in the so-called “devil’s wine.” There was little market for sparkling wine at the time. Dom Perignon was a pioneer of blending.
* The older a Champagne is, the smaller the bubbles become. Bubbles do not affect taste. Since vintage Champagne is aged extensively creating smaller bubbles, the quality of high quality Champagne is often attributed to small bubbles.
* Vintage Champagne must be aged a minimum of 3 years, some of the best are aged 7-8 years. After disgorgement, Champagne rarely improves with cellaring.
* The Widow Clicquot discovered remuage, a system of clearing Champagne yeast debris trapped in the bottle after secondary fermentation by riddling.
* Barbe-Nicole Clicquot was one of the first winemakers to use labels on her bottles in 1814.
* The signature of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot is on every orange label Champagne that bears her name.
I could only get about 1/4 of the way through the book. The author repeatedly uses words and phrases like “must have”, “surely”, and “probably”.
Either write a novel, or write a biography. If there’s simply not enough material for a biography, don’t waste my time.