The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.)

by Tilar J. Mazzeo

of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, the Veuve—or Widow—Clicquot.

The poet Lord Byron famously proclaimed that lobster salad and champagne were the only things a woman should ever be seen eating. Byron was an unrepentant chauvinist, but

Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman more beautiful after drinking it.

Today, there are only a handful of women in senior positions in the French wine industry, and only one of the elite and internationally renowned champagne houses known as the grandes marques is run by a woman—the house of Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, headed since 2001 by Madame Cécile Bonnefond.

In the process, she also helped to make the product she sold a byword for luxury, celebration, and the good life.

She opened these new horizons for women in business and forced those around her to reconsider the gender stereotypes of her day more or less despite herself.