The triumphant first shipment made Barbe-Nicole a local celebrity, generating sales equivalent to over $1 million and provoking envy among Reims competitors. Louis Bohne boasted that rivals were seething. The 1811 vintage received ecstatic reviews for its exceptional quality—the perfect harvest had produced intensely alcoholic wine with powerful effervescence. In Saint Petersburg, Czar Alexander declared he would drink only Barbe-Nicole’s champagne. Having sold every bottle in Königsberg, Louis departed for Saint Petersburg to take new orders.

Competitors did not know that Barbe-Nicole had already committed to a second, larger shipment of 12,780 bottles before learning whether the first had survived. While Louis was still at sea, news reached Reims that the czar had lifted Russia’s ban on bottled French wines. Recognizing that merchants would soon scramble for ships, she immediately chartered the La Bonne Intention—a decision that would have meant complete ruin if the first venture had failed. This second shipment, dispatched in midsummer despite dangerous temperatures for transporting pressurized bottles, also arrived safely. The back-to-back successes cemented her reputation throughout Europe.

In a November letter to her cousin Jennie, Barbe-Nicole marveled at how fortune had reversed within a single year. Bohne attributed their triumph to her business judgment, the wine’s excellence, and their unified execution. The daring advance shipments established the Widow Clicquot as a premier luxury brand in Russia’s vast market, though the public knew little about the woman herself.

The chapter situates her achievement within the broader transformation of champagne from regional artisan craft to industrialized big business. Barbe-Nicole positioned herself at the vanguard of this shift, taking control of the entire production process—from blending and aging to demanding precise specifications from suppliers. Her upbringing as an industrialist’s daughter equipped her to embrace the new capitalist model rather than cling to the disappearing role of bourgeois family businesswoman; both the Clicquot and Ponsardin families had built fortunes in textiles. She also benefited from the support of her father and her father-in-law, Philippe Clicquot. She joined a small cohort of entrepreneurs—including her competitors Moët, Jules Mumm, Louis Roederer, and Charles Heidsieck—who modernized the industry. Their names still dominate champagne today.

By summer 1815, Barbe-Nicole controlled an internationally renowned champagne enterprise, a rare achievement for a woman in an era when industrial culture increasingly barred women from business. The chapter notes that women remain rare in modern winemaking leadership, particularly in Champagne, drawing parallels to California’s wine industry, where crises created similar openings for female entrepreneurs.

The author recounts visiting Eileen Crane at Domaine Carneros in Napa, a winery founded by Champagne Taittinger (successor to the house of Alexandre Fourneaux, Barbe-Nicole’s first business partner) and modeled after the historic Château de la Marquetterie near Reims. At that site, Jean Oudart, a monk and contemporary of Dom Pérignon, conducted early sparkling wine experiments. Crane explains that early champagne was cloudy and served in frosted glasses to hide its appearance. Barbe-Nicole’s focus on producing crystal-clear wine was pivotal to making champagne a luxury product. Her legacy includes three achievements: internationalizing the market, establishing brand identity, and inventing remuage sur pupitre—the riddling process that revolutionized clarification.

After her Russian success, Barbe-Nicole faced overwhelming demand she could not meet. The dismal 1815 harvest threatened future supply, and crop failure became so severe that her father Nicolas led a charity drive to feed the starving poor. By early 1816, she had sold all her reserves and had to turn away orders. Determined to solve the production bottleneck, she demanded her workers double their output. They insisted the slow disgorging process could not be accelerated. She vowed to find a better method.

Barbe-Nicole developed an innovative solution: storing bottles neck-down on slanted angles to collect sediment on the cork. Her workers dismissed the idea as foolish. Working in secret with her cellar master Antoine Müller, she had her kitchen table moved to the cellars and drilled angled holes to hold the bottles. During workers’ dinner breaks, she personally turned hundreds of bottles daily. After six weeks, her experiment succeeded: sediment expelled cleanly with the cork, leaving clear wine. She immediately converted all cellar operations to this new system and implored workers to maintain secrecy.

The technique gave her a significant competitive advantage. Jean-Rémy Moët, who was simultaneously working with inventor André Jullien to improve clarification, became frantic over the superior clarity of her wines. In letters, he criticized her success. An industrial rivalry developed between the houses, but Moët did not discover her secret until 1832. By the 1830s, the industry adopted A-frame racks called pupitres for riddling, a method still practiced for vintage champagne today. The invention of remuage enabled explosive growth, with top producers like Barbe-Nicole and Moët exporting over 175,000 bottles annually by the 1820s, compared to just 6,000 in 1780.

At a family gathering, Barbe-Nicole observed two suitors competing for her 17-year-old daughter Clémentine’s attention. The socially anxious girl worried about an upcoming ball hosted by neighbors Marie Andrieux and Florent Simon. One persistent suitor was the assistant police chief, but he had little prospect. The other, a wealthy young man whose family demanded a large dowry, was also unlikely. Frustrated by marriage negotiations, Barbe-Nicole lamented the commodification of marriage, though she understood it was fundamentally a business transaction.

Louis Marie-Joseph Chevigné, the Count of Chevigné, then appeared. A charming 24-year-old aristocrat with limited means, he captivated both Clémentine and Barbe-Nicole. Her father Nicolas was thrilled at the prospect of making his granddaughter a countess. During the 1793 Terror, revolutionaries imprisoned Louis’s mother, her sister the Countess de Marmande, and all five Chevigné children for treason. Before execution, his mother, aunt, and three sisters died of disease in their cells. In a final act, his mother begged a woman in the prison to take her two surviving children, baby Louis and nine-year-old Marie-Pélagie, who were later taken in by two wealthy women. Their father also perished. Louis and his sister eventually came under the care of their uncle, the Count of Chaffault. After fighting for the monarchy against Napoleon, Louis had his title restored by King Louis XVIII but not his family fortune.

Despite his poverty, Louis negotiated skillfully. Private letters revealed his intent to marry Clémentine for wealth. Barbe-Nicole, nearly 40 and as ambitious for aristocratic connections as her father, offered 200,000 francs as dowry, annual income of 20,000 francs, and free accommodation. She viewed the marriage as both personally gratifying and shrewd marketing—noble titles enhanced brand prestige. The engagement was announced in July with an elaborate wedding planned for September 10. Louis immediately took control of Clémentine’s wedding wardrobe, arguing her dresses lacked sophistication.

In August, weeks before the ceremony, Barbe-Nicole’s brother Jean-Baptiste was found dead. The family, now in mourning, held a quiet wedding instead. The sheltered Clémentine was awkward with her new husband, initially addressing him formally. Letters between Louis and his friend Richard Castel contained bawdy references to their intimate life. The newlyweds honeymooned at the Bouzy farm with Barbe-Nicole. Louis attempted to involve himself in the champagne business, but she firmly refused. Their daughter Marie-Clémentine was born in 1818. The couple began spending winters in Paris, and Barbe-Nicole indulged Louis’s expensive tastes, purchasing the Château de Boursault—situated among Moët’s vineyards—and later another country estate.

Between 1819 and 1820, Barbe-Nicole lost both her father-in-law Philippe Clicquot and her father Nicolas. She unexpectedly inherited the grand Hôtel Ponsardin. That winter, her trusted salesman Louis Bohne died slipping on an icy bridge. Grieving, she turned to George Christian von Kessler, a salesman during the lean years who had become a junior partner in 1815. Possibly personally close to him, she announced in December that she would retire in three years and gift him the entire company. Less than a year later, in summer 1822, she abruptly revoked the promise. 

Around the same time, a handsome 20-year-old German clerk named Matthieu-Édouard Werler joined the firm. Local gossip, later recorded by author Robert Tomes, suggested Barbe-Nicole’s attraction to the young man drove his rapid advancement. She made Werler her constant cellar companion and began grooming him as her successor. Reenergized, she abandoned retirement. Encouraged by Chevigné and von Kessler, she expanded by returning to textiles and opening the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin and Company Bank—a decision that would later have serious consequences.