How One Woman Overcame Pandemics, Mental Illness, Sexism, War, and Napoleon to Build a Champagne Empire

How One Woman Overcame Pandemics, Mental Illness, Sexism, War, and Napoleon to Build a Champagne Empire

By Rebecca Rosenberg

For centuries, women have faced the devastation of pandemics and roadblocks of sexist laws. Yet, one of them, the audacious and determined Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, found a way to build a champagne empire despite the hardships. 

In 1805, the Typhoid Fever pandemic swept through the Champagne region of Reims, France, and took the life of champagne house owner Francois Clicquot, who suffered from mental illness. His young wife, Barbe-Nicole, was left a single parent to a six-year-old daughter. Her father-in-law promptly informed Clicquot winery customers, employees, and vendors they were closing the doors. 

Under Napoleon Code, she inherited only a quarter of her husband’s property, the rest reverting to his family. Now known as Veuve (widow) Clicquot, Barbe-Nicole needed money to support herself and her daughter and was dismayed that their champagne winery would be taken from her. In a time when married women were prevented from owning a business in France, she found a loophole. Seeking legal advice, she learned that a widow could own a business and property. She’d never run a business or handled finances, but Barbe-Nicole was determined to continue the champagne house. She bargained with her father-in-law to carry on the winery, which he agreed to on the condition he chose a male business partner for her.

Despite her ambitions and best intentions, her first steps in the male-dominated world of wine-making were doomed. She started this new venture in the middle of thirteen years of Napoleonic wars (1803-1815). As Napoleon fought to rule Europe, he blocked trade between countries and destroyed Europe’s economy, making it nearly impossible to sell wine. By 1810, Veuve Clicquot’s business partner knew their venture failed and broke off the partnership. 

On her own again, her father-in-law pressed her to close the winery and stem the losses. In the face of rising doubts and mounting debt, Barbe-Nicole became more determined. She boldly rebranded the winery as Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, using her title, widow (Veuve) and adding her maiden name, so there would be no mistake who was making the wine. Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin was the first champagne house owned by a woman. 

The next few years were bleak for the single mother managing the vineyards and winery alone. Napoleon and his French army waged two more wars; the Fifth Coalition War with Austria and Britain and the Peninsular War with Spain. In 1812, Barbe-Nicole’s champagne sales fell from a peak of 130,000 bottles to 10,000 bottles. She used those dark years to improve the wine. Champagne in the early 1800s was unpredictable and mysterious. It could grow snakes of yeast, be flat and lifeless, or murky with frog’s-eye bubbles. Barbe-Nicole invented new methods to enhance her champagne’s clarity and taste. Eventually, she created the riddling rack, a large board with holes to store wine bottles neck down. A gentle rotation of the bottle slid sediment down into the bottleneck for easier removal. This method of riddling bottles and the riddling rack are still used in champagne making today. 

“The world is in perpetual motion, and we must invent the things of tomorrow. One must go before others, be determined and exacting, and let your intelligence direct your life. Act with audacity.”

–Barbe-Nicole Clicquot

The Great Comet of 1811, known as Napoleon’s Comet, streaked across the sky for one million miles and was visible for more than two hundred and sixty days. Prophets said the comet predicted Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the war of 1812. But, for Barbe-Nicole, the Great Comet of 1811 brought the most magnificent and bountiful grape harvest of a decade. Using her new techniques and skills, she crafted an exquisite champagne that would make her famous. Le Vin de Comète was the first vintage champagne ever made, using only grapes from that comet year instead of the traditional method of blending wines from different years.

While Barbe-Nicole aged her Vin de la Comète in the chalk caves under her winery, France remained in turmoil as Napoleon waged the Sixth Coalition war against Prussia, Sweden, Austria, Russia, the United Kingdom, and several German states. In 1812, he marched his Grand Army of half a million soldiers to Moscow. When they arrived, Moscow was deserted and burned by the Russians. Napoleon had to march his army back across the vast frozen wilderness in the winter. Bitter winds froze the horses in place. Men died of Typhus and other diseases. Battling peasants and Cossacks on the way back, Napoleon’s Grand Army dwindled to ten thousand men.*  When Napoleon heard of a coup d’etat in Paris, he abandoned his army and fled back through Barbe-Nicole’s town of Reims, seeking lodging at her father’s house.

Prussians, Cossacks, and Russians invaded and occupied Reims until Napoleon abdicated in March 1814. Finally, the time had come for Barbe-Nicole to launch the audacious strategy she had been planning. She hired a Dutch vessel, packed it with 10,550 bottles of Clicquot champagne, and sent it with her salesman, Louis Bohne, through the Baltic Sea. 

He found an eager market starved for fine wine and other luxury goods. “Our ship is the first for many years to sail North…with a cargo of champagne,” Bohne wrote. He immediately sold out his stock in Konigsberg and St. Petersburg. Barbe-Nicole sent another ship with 12,500 bottles. 

By Autumn, they had 70,000 bottles committed. Barbe-Nicole worried they would run out. “What a lovely problem to have,” Bohne wrote. Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin rocketed to 280,000 bottles in 1821. Survival of the champagne house was assured. Had Barbe-Nicole remarried, her business and power would have been ceded to her new husband. Instead, by remaining a widow until she died in 1866, Veuve Clicquot gave us a model of strength, creativity, and vision as she used her intelligence, tenacity, and sheer guts to break through the chaos and confusion in the world around her. 

—

Rebecca Rosenberg is an award-winning author of historical novels celebrating creative, fearless women who broke the rules to make them better. Her forthcoming novel Champagne Widows tells the story of the first woman to build the champagne industry. Coming in print March 1, 2022, in time for Women’s History Month. 

*Olson, Pasachoff & Pillinger 1999, p. 138., Riehn 1990, p. 390.

 

CHAMPAGNE WIDOWS

“This effervescent historical novel paints a richly detailed portrait of the enterprising Veuve Clicquot. The twinned plots of Clicquot and Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise and fall are filled with detail that give life to this far-off time. The prose is light, yet detailed, and peppered with moments of wry humor. Napoleon’s characterization is well-crafted and give his character new life. Clicquot’s character is charming, and readers will love getting to know her. Rosenberg has a superb eye for blending humor with drama.” ~Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize

From triple-gold award-winning author, Rebecca Rosenberg: Champagne, France, 1800. Twenty-year-old Barbe-Nicole inherited Le Nez (an uncanny sense of smell) from her great-grandfather, a renowned champagne maker. She is determined to use Le Nez to make great champagne, but the Napoleon Code prohibits women from owning a business. When she learns her childhood sweetheart, François Clicquot, wants to start a winery, she marries him despite his mental illness.

Soon, her husband’s tragic death forces her to become Veuve (Widow) Clicquot and grapple with a domineering partner, the complexities of making champagne, and six Napoleon wars, which cripple her ability to sell champagne. When she falls in love with her sales manager, Louis Bohne, who asks her to marry, she must choose between losing her winery to her husband, as dictated by Napoleon Code, or losing Louis.

In the ultimate showdown, Veuve Clicquot defies Napoleon himself, risking prison and even death.

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