Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, a widow who took over her husband's struggling champagne business in 1805. Defying the legal limitations placed on women in her time, she innovated the riddling table, transforming cloudy champagne into the crystal-clear sparkling wine we know today. Learn about her daring plans to sneak champagne past naval blockades to reach the Russian market, leading to her champagne being declared the favorite of Tsar Alexander.
We also uncover a fascinating twist in the tale: nearly 200 years later, a shipwreck off the coast of Finland revealed bottles of her champagne that had been lost at sea. These remarkable discoveries not only highlight her legacy but also show how one woman's tenacity and ingenuity changed the wine industry forever. Tune in for the full pour on Barbe-Nicole Clicquot’s extraordinary contributions to champagne!
00:00
Every bottle has a front label.
00:03
That's the story they want you to know.
00:06
The back label is the story they didn't.
00:09
This is the back label.
00:12
A story that gives you the full pour.
00:25
Napoleon Bonaparte is rewriting the map of Europe.
00:29
Armies are moving. Borders are dissolving.
00:32
And in the Champagne region of France,
00:35
in a stone house in the city of Reims,
00:38
a 27-year-old woman is standing over her husband's body.
00:42
His name was François Clicquot.
00:45
He was supposed to build a wine empire.
00:48
However, he left behind a small struggling business,
00:52
a mountain of debt, and a widow.
00:56
Now, in 1805, women in France
00:59
could not open bank accounts,
01:02
could not sign contracts,
01:05
could not, under Napoleon's own legal code,
01:11
Her father-in-law told her to walk away.
01:14
She did not walk away.
01:17
Barbie Nicole Clicquot had grown up around commerce,
01:20
around ambition, around people who bent the rules
01:24
She took over the company.
01:27
And then she got to work.
01:30
Champagne in the early 1800s was not what you know today.
01:33
It was cloudy, unpredictable,
01:36
full of sediment that floated through your glass
01:39
like a slow brown snowstorm.
01:42
Every champagne bottle was a gamble.
01:45
Guests would finish their wine,
01:48
then flip their glasses upside down
01:55
11 years after burying her husband,
01:58
she invented the riddling table,
02:01
a board pierced with holes to cradle bottles
02:04
while they were carefully rotated,
02:07
forcing all the sediment down to the bottleneck
02:10
during the aging process.
02:13
It worked. For the first time,
02:16
champagne ran crystal clear.
02:19
A champagne producer in the world eventually adopted her method.
02:22
The process continues to be used today.
02:25
But that, that is not the full pour.
02:28
Napoleon's wars had shut down European trade.
02:31
Borders were closed, shipping lanes blockaded,
02:34
and Russia, one of the biggest markets for champagne in the world,
02:37
was completely off limits.
02:40
Barbie Nicole had a plan.
02:43
While the war's naval blockades paralyzed commercial shipping,
02:47
Madame Clico and her agent, Louis Bone,
02:50
secretly planned to sneak a boat through the blockade to Russia.
02:53
She loaded over 10,000 bottles of her finest vintage
02:59
The moment Napoleon was sent into exile,
03:02
she charted a Dutch vessel
03:05
and sailed it straight to a Russian port on the Baltic coast,
03:08
arriving just in time to celebrate the end of hostilities.
03:15
they were still packing their crates.
03:18
Her entire shipment sold immediately.
03:21
And Tsar Alexander declared that
03:24
Vuvie Clico was the only champagne he would drink.
03:27
And when the Tsar of Russia says that's the only champagne he'll touch,
03:30
the rest of the world listens.
03:33
But here's the full pour.
03:36
In June of 2010, nearly 200 years later,
03:39
a group of Finnish scuba divers
03:43
were exploring the floor of the Baltic Sea near the Åland Islands.
03:46
They found a shipwreck.
03:49
And inside that shipwreck,
03:52
168 bottles of champagne,
03:55
resting undisturbed on the ocean floor
03:58
for over 170 years.
04:01
47 of them, Vuv Clico.
04:04
They brought them to the surface,
04:07
sent them to France for analysis,
04:11
and the contents were extremely well preserved.
04:14
The widow's champagne, sealed in 1840,
04:17
bound for the Russian imperial court,
04:20
lost at sea, found 200 years later, still good.
04:23
A 27-year-old woman with no legal right to run a business
04:26
invented the riddling table,
04:29
cracked the Russian market,
04:32
and built one of the most recognized champagne houses in the history of the world.
04:35
And somewhere at the bottom of the Baltic Sea,
04:38
still making your point,
04:41
the front label never tells you that.
04:44
You now know the back label story.
No lines match your search.
