Book Review: The Widow Clicquot

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I admit that I initially read this book due to my great interest in wine. But I soon realized that it was really a great study in successful entrepreneur-ism under incredibly challenging conditions.

The Widow Clicquot is the story of France's first Champagne empire, one created and ruled by an entrepreneurial woman who overcame huge challenges in a man's world of the late 1700's-early 1800's. I highly recommend it to all women entrepreneurs who want some insights in making it in a male dominated society.

I won't go into the whole story as the book is a quick read, but just review a few highlights.  Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin was born into a middle class entrepreneurial family in 1778 in Reims--today the world capital of Champagne production. She barely survived the French Revolution in 1789, only by a kindly servant smuggling her out of danger. She married young, and asked for the families wine shipping business as part of her dowry. Her husband promptly died and she was left with running the business. Wars constantly shut down European borders to wine exports, poor vineyard management ruined vintages, business partners were untrustworthy, to name a few of her travails. Having a top sales guy who traveled Europe, avoided arrest at every turn and was consistently loyal to her for years was a key success factor. She expanded in the early years beyond shipping other producers wine into making her own Champagne, working tirelessly to create a cachet around her brand by convincing kings, queens and nobles--especially the Russians-- to fall in love with the bubbly. At least twice the business should have failed but Barbe-Nicole always found a way to survive, including smuggling her wines across closed borders.

To be sure, the book has its faults. Little is known about Barbe-Nicole's personal life and much of her business savvy needs interpolation from scanty company records. This does not take anything away from her remarkable feats in surviving during a time when war was the norm and peace a distant hope in Europe. The author takes liberties with lots of references on what might have happened instead of facts.  But the facts do not exist and I never felt she seriously overstepped her bounds.