She was not just the first woman to build a commercial champagne house founded on new mercantilist principles; she was one of only a handful of entrepreneurs to do it at all. She wasn’t amazing just as a businesswoman. She was amazing at business. When we look at the names of the famous champagnes on our grocery store shelves, the so-called grandes marques, it should come as no surprise that these are the names of Barbe-Nicole’s nineteenth-century competitors.
