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(1777—1866) French vintner and inventor

“General Loewenhielm again set down his glass,” wrote the acclaimed author Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) in her classic novel Babette’s Feast, “turned to his neighbor on the right and said to him: ‘But surely this is a Veuve Clicquot I860?’” Veuve Clicquot’s wines graced the tables of choosy gastronomes all over Europe in the 19th century. Today, her label is known the world over. Married at age 19 and widowed at 27, Nicole-Barbe Clicquot ran a winery business that became known all over Europe as “Veuve Clicquot,” or “Widow Clicquot,” after her marital status as a widow. Now over 200 years old, Veuve Clicquot is known primarily for its champagne. Clicquot’s invention of the riddling table, designed to eliminate the sediment from the fermented white grape, while retaining champagne’s signature effervescence, explains her success.

Veuve Clicquot’s business became a household name through sheer tenacity, for Clicquot operated her winery under extremely difficult circumstances. At the time she took over her husband’s wine operation, the French businesses suffered from economic blockades that prevented them from trading with other nations. When the French emperor Napoleon (1769-1821), having already conquered Austria and Italy, prepared to invade England in May 1803, the British set up a naval blockade of the French coast, preventing goods from entering or exiting France. Furthermore, businesses were heavily taxed to help pay for Napoleon’s perpetual wars. Clicquot’s determination enabled her business to survive and even thrive.

Clicquot’s father-in-law, Philippe Clicquot-Muiron, a cloth merchant, added a small wine operation to his main business in the 1770s. He began to ship bottled wine to customers across Europe. Bottled wine was unusual in 18th-century Europe. Wine stored in casks or barrels was easier to make and ship; bottles represented a risk, due to greater expense and risk of breakage. The strategy of selling wine to only a few customers usually royal courts in Germany and Austria paid off, and soon Clicquot shipped his wine to Russia and even America. Clicquot did not bottle the wine he sold; instead, he purchased already bottled wines from local suppliers. When Philippe Clicquot-Muiron died in 1800, his son, Francois, decided to make the business his primary occupation.

Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin, born east of Paris in Reims, France, was the daughter of Reims’s mayor.

She married Francois Clicquot in 1798 and gave birth to their daughter, Clementine. When her husband died in 1805, no one expected Veuve Clicquot to continue the business, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, women running businesses in 19th-century France were few and far between. Furthermore, because of the war between England and France (which began in 1803) the business suffered. When the British blockade began the following year, locals expected Clicquot to sell her husband’s business to vintners nearby.

Nicole-Barbe’s creative mind probably saved her business. “Champagne,” or sparkling wine, is so named because of the region it comes from: the northeast corner of France called Champagne. (Be leery of anyone who offers to sell you champagne that is not bottled in France. Champagne’s vintners own the exclusive rights to the term champagne) There, grape growers had developed a method of aging wines, rather than selling them as soon as they were casked. The process added to expense, and thus Champagne vintners produced wine for a small, upscale market. These vintners discovered that if red grapes are pressed lightly and quickly enough, they produce a clear, or white, wine. The grapes must be harvested and pressed at just the right moment (one man claimed that he only harvested during a full moon!).

Preparation of white, sparkling wine included bottling, which preserved the foam produced during the second fermentation of the wine. Nevertheless, the sparkling wine still suffered from a cloudy sediment that formed in the bottle during fermentation. Veuve Clicquot invented a table de rémuage, or riddling table, to clarify her wines. The riddling table included a series of narrow holes, which held the wine bottles upside down. The idea behind the table de rémuage was to bring the sediment that formed at the bottom of the bottle to the top of the bottle, so that it could collect in the cork. Gradually, the bottle was then returned to its upright position, uncorked, emptied of the sediment, and then recorked, without losing any of its bubbly effervescence.

Even with her invention, however, Clicquot faced difficulties in shipping her product, due to the war. In early 1814, however, there were signs that soon

Napoleon would be deposed as ruler of France, and that the war would end. Russia had also been at war with France and had closed its borders to French businesses. Clicquot, in her businesslike manner, decided to gamble on her hunch: she immediately outfitted a ship full of wines and ordered the ship to set sail for St. Petersburg, Russia. At the end of 1814, the harbor opened, and Clicquot delivered her wines to her appreciative Russian clients.

Veuve Clicquot died in 1866, at the age of 89.