Veuve Clicquot, the “Widow Clicquot”, took over a small wine business after her husband’s death – and built it into a champagne empire. As an entrepreneur, she defied wars, political turmoil and the image of women of the Napoleon era.
“Ah, dear friend, what a spectacle! And how I wish you could have enjoyed it!” Louis Bohne wrote this exuberantly in July 1814 from Königsberg to his boss Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin in Reims, France. “By the effect of your vine juice, you would have seen two thirds of Königsberg society at your feet. Of all the wines that have tickled the northern palate, the 1811 Clicquot has no equal. Delicious in taste, it is the gentlest of murderers. Tsar Alexander himself has incorporated it.”