Posted on 12/28/2008 3:54:45 PM PST by Cincinna
“The Widow Clicquot,” Tilar J. Mazzeo’s sweeping oenobiography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, is the story of a woman who was a smashing success long before anyone conceptualized the glass ceiling. Her destiny was formed in the wake of the French Revolution when, Mazzeo suggests, “modern society — with its emphasis on commerce and the freedom of the individual — was invented.” Barbe-Nicole, daughter of a successful textile maker turned Jacobin, is portrayed as someone whose way of doing business helped define the next century.
Fate cursed or blessed her with the mantle of early widowhood. Her husband, a winemaker from whom she learned the craft, died when she was 27, leaving her a single mother — the veuve (widow) Clicquot. Officially, the cause of François Clicquot’s death was typhoid, which was then commonly treated by feeding the patient Champagne, believed to strengthen the body against what was known as malignant fever. “To think that a bottle of his own sparkling wine might have saved François!” Mazzeo writes, going on to speculate that it is also possible he killed himself because business wasn’t good.
Already savvy about winemaking, Barbe-Nicole plunged into a new life. Despite contemporary mores and the Napoleonic Code, which emphasized a woman’s role at home, she was not alone. She saw the success of such wine merchants as the widow Germon, the widow Robert and the widow Blanc, and understood that widows were the “only women granted the social freedom to run their own affairs.” With the gate open, she was off and running with spectacular results.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
I found a wolf spider in the last bottle I bought. I first heard the story about Clicquot at a local wine tasting. I still think it is a heck of a story.
Cheers Cincinna!
Veuve is my favorite!
My favorite!
Eww! I guess, though, it's better than finding HALF a spider, after you've quaffed a few glasses. ;o)
Sorry, don’t like champagne.
I need to let you know I was joking. This was a response to another freeper who was trying to discourage people buying this very lovely champagne. I thought I would join in the fun.
Crystalino (Cava) is cheap, and really rather good.
I think we're gonna skip the champagne this New Year's. We had some at our choir party after Midnight Mass, then our own family Christmas at home, in the wee hours of Christmas morning, and SirKit drank a few glasses. He woke up, mid-afternoon on Christmas Day feeling awful.
We'll either toast the New Year with some good old Sam Adams Winter Lager, or Martinelli's Sparkling Cider.
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