The Remarkable Story of Widow Clicquot: How a Determined Woman Revolutionized the Champagne Industry

Donna Jean Earhart: Interesting book on an amazing subject.

United States on Sep 29, 2023

K. TOM: I always love reading books about strong women who defied the norm of their time to blaze a trail of their own and set a new standard for those who knew them!

United States on Jul 09, 2023

Stephen Ballou: I want to read this. After 50 pages of a 200 page book, I’m not hooked. Not sure why, subject matter is on spot. Perhaps methodology….

United States on Apr 06, 2023

shi: Girl power to The Widow. She revolutionised champagne..
Lots of history, well written and still we are left wanting to learn more about this fascinating woman.

United Kingdom on Jul 20, 2022

Scoop: Likes the story, the history and look of the book. Also the recipes.

Canada on May 13, 2022

WF van der Hart: The life of the Widow Clicquot is certainly an interesting story, but the book is not one of the amazing biographies I've read in the past. It's okay and since I'm a champagne fan the book does reveal interesting facts. But the overall writing style is not making me enthusiastic. The writer makes it clear he does not really know what happened exactly and uses lots of might, perhaps, maybe etc.. to speculate on what the widow might have done. It reads like extensive research with lots of speculation about the missing parts.

Germany on Mar 15, 2022

Travel Books and Movies: I’m a big fan of sparkling wine--I like tasting it, looking at it, learning more about it, and of course, reading about it. So reading The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It was a must for me.

The book details the life of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, the “Grande Dame of Champagne,” who revolutionized the champagne industry while being a widowed single mother and one of the first women in the world to run an international business.

Written in a thorough, but accessible way, The Widow Clicquot (in French: “Veuve Clicquot”) details the life of this remarkable woman and her rise to international business leader with interesting information on the development of champagne (spoiler alert: Dom Perignon did not actually invent it), the French Revolution, life in France during the 19th century, and, of course, the personal story of Barbe-Nicole and her family.

The author admits to having difficulty finding information on this fascinating woman, but brings together an interesting portrait of a woman, a time period, and a product that has resounding effects today. (She also includes some information on which places...

United States on Mar 24, 2020

Hande Z: The Widow Cliquot is the direct translation of Veuve Cliquot, a champagne that has become world famous, the yellow label being reasonably priced and a bar favourite, while 'La Grand Dame' is the domaine's star. This book is a well-written, easy reading biography of Madame Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin. She became a widow when her husband, Francois, died - ostensibly from typhoid but rumours about a suicide were also making their ways around. The Widow did not let them deter her, and from mid-way through the book, Mazzeo records the problems that the Widow faced - and surmounted - before the brand became the world renowned Veuve Clicquot champagne.

Chapter 14 is interesting in that it presents the later years of Barbe-Nicole, and her 'financial marriage' to Edouard Werle, who was given a fifty percent stake in the company, and the addition of his name to the company's. Thereafter, the Veuve Clicquot empire spread.

United States on Mar 07, 2020

David: strangely, the route to reading this biography came more by circumstance than by intent. Earlier in 2019 I had been doing post-graduate research on Gabrielle Bonheur (Coco) Chanel and had included, in the secondary source readings 'The Secret of Chanel No. 5' and 'The Hotel on Place Vendome', both written by Tilar J. Mazzeo and like 'The Widow Clicquot', well worth reading. It has to be said that for financial, circumstantial, health or personal preference standpoints, clearly not everyone will consume Champagne. However, this is a biography about a highly unusual, dedicated, yet very private French woman by the name of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, born on the 16 December 1777, in other words, in the era of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was just eight years her senior, born on 15 August 1769. But here's the nub of this biography: she invented what is known in the trade as remuage, slanting the bottles neck downwards and giving them a sharp quarter turn each day to concentrate the sediment formed by the spent yeast, which over time and much care, results in Champagne as we know it to this day! And more to the point, Veuve Clicquot Champagne is one, if not the, premium Champagne in what is to...

United Kingdom on Nov 01, 2019

A Montreal Reader: The research behind this book and the love of wine are evident; I learned much about champagne wine-making and took a Reims focused trip into French history that I greatly appreciated. The writing is fluid and easy to ready; while the back-up takes up more than 60 pages at the end so you will finish quicker than you think. I am now very tempted to base my 2019 vacation time to do the vendange. The only drawback, hence the 4 stars and not 5, is that having little to no archives and journals available, there is some fictionalization of what the Veuve Clicquot actually felt and why she did what she did; the author is very clear on the limitations of available documents but this left me hungry for "the real story".

Canada on Aug 27, 2018