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

An impressive saga about the first of France’s “Champagne Widows,” Barbe-Nicole Clicquot. Possessing a rare gift known as “Le Nez” (the Nose), Barbe-Nicole can create incredible blends, as well as smell “the stench of lies or the fragrance of a pure heart—or the heartbreak scent of unfulfilled hope.” Besides this gift, she has courage and faith in herself; she overcomes unimaginable hardships during the years of the Napoleonic Code, which left widows without rights to property—and in Barbe-Nicole’s case, without her winery, without her champagne. A plot cleverly intertwined with historical letters of Napoleon takes the reader to the height of turbulent French life in the early 19th century, when Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin created her empire—the great champagne empire.