The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It

by Tilar J. Mazzeo

Book Overview

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Haley Bennett, Tom Sturridge, and Sam Riley

"Narrative history that fizzes with life and feeling." -- Benjamin Wallace, New York Times bestselling author of The Billionaire's Vinegar

The New York Times bestselling biography of the visionary young woman who built a champagne empire, became a legend, and showed the world how to live...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061288586
• ISBN13: 9780061288586
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Harper Business
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Culutral History at Its Best

This is one of he finest books about wine ever written. What makes it so very special is the fact that it is a book that explains how a time and place produced both a special person and a special cultural product. The story of the Widow Clicquot is compelling enough. But when you add to that story all the rich details of history (e.g., the role of Napoleon in the development of champagne) as well as the many fascinating personalities that comprise the story of the rise of this great wine and the house that made it special, you have a book that knows no equal. This is a story to be savoured, along with a glass of the Grand Dame.

Wine, leadership, and French history.

There are 100 reasons Barb-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin should have failed at managing, leading, and growing her small family winery. In 1798, Moet had market share. Temperature and potholes burst bottles in horse drawn wagons, before railways existed. The Napoleonic Wars of Revolutionary France blockaded borders for international sales with Britain & Russia. John Adam's US was purchasing Louisiana, but not champagne. In 1802, her German salesman's first foray to Britain was disastrous. His first attempt at cracking the Russian market in 1804 proved fatal. Then her husband died. Set in the industrial revolution, Tilar Mazzeo weaves a grand tale of what Barb-Nicole, the widow entrepreneur, overcomes; wars, bank failures, near bankruptcy, blockades, bans, politics, recessions, family tragedy, failed harvests, and exploding bottles. She presents a determined business leader focused on expanding sales, increasing production, innovating products, inventing and testing, accounting tenaciously, and guarding intellectual property. Near the nadir, The Widow Clicquot had a stellar 1811 grape harvest, which she had to protect against Russian soldiers occupying Reims and bankroll until borders re-opened. Clicquot's decisions leading up to her 1814 end-run and coup of the Russian market, securing solvency, is an inspiring case study in branding, marketing, & business strategy. Read The Widow Clicquot for European History viewed from one company's books in Reims, France, where King's were crowned, and where Barb-Nicole made fortunes.

To Say No to Champagne is to Say No to Life

This is a terrific book on many levels. As an historical opus, it is sublime. As a character study of a pioneering woman ahead of her time, it is unsurpassed. As a study of the wine & champagne industry, it educates the reader in an enjoyable and thrilling way. To write a great book, the author must be adept in turning a phrase. More importantly, Passion for the subject must ring true. This author, Tilar Mazzeo, is clearly enamored of her study. This is evident from the first sentence of the book until the last. The Widow Cliquot chronicles the life's work of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, "the Grand Lady of Champagne". Widowed at the untimely age of twenty seven, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot had to forge a new life for herself. Her fortune was inextricably tied to the nascent sparkling wine industry from the region of Champagne. Through sheer audacity & strength of will she built an empire that remains to this day. Champagne Cliquot is so much more than the orange label or the favorite Champagne of James Bond-it is an effervescent part of history! This book is extraordinarily well-written. The pages fly by as the reader explores the 19th Century World of the Sparkling Wine Industry. Prior to the emergence of Champagne, a sparkling wine was a wine that had fermented and gone bad. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade! could be the modern day mantra of the enterprising Widow Cliquot. She turned the tragedy of bubbling wine into a unique success story. The book captivates the reader and takes one on a remarkable journey through the world of the methode champagnoise in 19th Century France. Against the backdrop of Napoleonic France, The onslaught of Prussian soldiers, and various other hardships, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot prevails. Her story is wonderful-a story for any epoch. This is a truly enjoyable book. My only regret is that I inevitably turned the last page and The Widow Cliquot's remarkable history came to a close. I heartily recommend this book! Cheers!

A well-written literate and researched account of the Grand Dame of Champagne

Mazzeo sifted through a great amount of material to find anything of substance on the life of Widow Clicquot. Much of her story is lost to time, having never been recorded. Thankfully, some letters still exist as well as some few other primary sources of her time or shortly thereafter. My kudos to the author for the amount of research she did, and especially for the wonderfully literate, information-packed, and yet still easily read way the Widow Clicquot's story is offered here. I had great difficulty tearing myself away from the book, and so ended up reading it all in one shot. Clicquot's story is captivating in the amount of work she put into making her house a major Champagne player, developing new technologies, and changing Champagne's face in the world into the one drink most closely associated with good living, celebration, and high society. If not for Widow Clicquot's diligence and vision 200 years ago, Champagne would have a very different place in the world today. Hers is a mesmerizing story, fascinating for it's historical location between the French Revolution and the end of the Napoleonic era, and inspiring for it being the story of a woman doing what a woman wasn't supposed to be doing (especially not a woman of such wealth and renowned family). And Mazzeo's gifts as a story-teller are truly up to the greatness of the story she tells. Mazzeo begins the story with the young Barbe-Nicole being snuck out of the convent school so she wouldn't be executed in the revolution. She takes us through the tumultuous years after the Revolution, wars with England and other countries, the rise and fall of Napoleon, and the incredible changes in technology, industry, religiosity, and culture that swept through Europe and Russia in the years from the late 1700s into the mid-1800s. Mazzeo offers that history in concise and quick form, but doesn't cheat it of its depth, bouncing Clicquot's story against it and through all the way through the book. And she offers not only a history of the military stuff happening in Europe, but also the economic. How businesses were affected (especially Clicquot's business, of course), offering a more holistic history of the period than most historical textbooks I've been forced to slog through that seem to think that the only important facet of history is a litany of battles and generals. This is truly an excellent history of a magnificent and inspiring woman through some of Europe's most interesting historical times - the beginning of the post-feudal post-monarchical modern era that we continue to live in. And an excellent history of what is (in my opinion, anyway) the best Champagne in the world, and also the history of Champagne itself. For those interested in food, this is a must-have book, to sit on the shelf with "Salt", "Beef", "Cod", "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" and other recent books on the history of food. For those interested in European history, this is a must-have book. And for those interested in a history

The Audacity of Widow Clicquot

To her last surviving great-grandchild Madame Clicquot writes, "I am going to tell you a secret... You more than anyone resemble me, you who have such audacity. It is a precious quality that has been very useful to me in the course of my long life... to dare things before others... I am called today the Grand Lady of Champagne!" Coming from a genteel class, it was unusual in that day to run a business, these women instead, were expected to sit leisurely around drawing rooms in idle chatter but when only twenty-seven years old, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot became a widow. The hurdles of making wine and champagne: unreliable bottle quality, turmoil of war preventing export, unusually wet or hot weather, all became Widow Clicquot's worry. Wines that sparkled were wines that had gone bad. And beginning in the Middle Ages in the Champagne region of France, it was happening more and more. To turn this seeming catastrophe into a success put Champagne on the map. Second fermentation, a disaster for wine, was coaxed into happening in a bottle of champagne. The Widow Clicquot became, in the nineteenth century, a premier name in Champagne. This book puts a face on that label. This book is not only the very interesting story of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot but it is also full of very fascinating details about making wine, making champagne, labeling varietals, labeling quality. Second fermentation, the use of sulfur and wine remaining on the lees all makes sense to me now. If you love wine you will really enjoy the history of this fascinating woman and the process of making wine. The one detriment to this book is Tilar Mazzeo's overuse of the word "perhaps." It leaves the reader wondering just how much of the biographical information is accurate.