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no idea what a remarkable woman la veuve (the widow) Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin was. Mazzeo does an excellent job of piecing together Barbe-Nicole’s life, even with relatively few resources available (the Veuve Clicquot archives hold many detailed account books but no personal documents). Interestingly, as Mazzeo points out, in the nineteenth century, when the story of Champagne begins, the history books rarely included the lives of entrepreneurs or commercial innovators, especially if they happened to be female. It’s not difficult to find letters and diaries of royalty or notable statesmen, “but few librarians thought to collect personal records of businesspeople, even businesspeople who did exceptional things.” This is still true today, but it was particularly true in the nineteenth century for a woman, unless she was either royalty or the sister, wife, or mother of a notable man. Nicole-Barbe wasn’t any of these, but she was formidable, independent, and determined. As Mazzeo writes, “Her success was not in bucking the system, but neither did she slavishly follow convention.… She had a talent for seeing the opportunities that existed in moments of cultural and economic instability.” Her triumphs and failures make for interesting reading, and a few myths are busted along the way: Dom Pérignon did not discover sparkling wine, for instance, and some wine historians now claim that a Champagne-like beverage was first invented in Great Britain, where there had been a small market for sparkling wine by the 1660s.

I like that Mazzeo gives us good descriptions of the city at the center of the Champagne region, Reims (pronounced as “Rans,” she tells us) both at the time of the ancien régime and today. She also reminds us that, like the other great widow of her day, Great Britain’s Queen Victoria, the widow Clicquot helped to define a century. “For decade after decade, her name was heard on the lips of soldiers, princes, and poets as far away as Russia. Before long, tourists came looking for a glimpse of the woman whom the writer Prosper Mérimée once called the uncrowned queen of Reims.” She was known locally simply as la grande dame—the great lady—and rare Veuve Clicquot vintages are still named La Grande Dame today. Nicole-Barbe is revealed in these pages as a woman of contradictions: a generous philanthropist but also a hard-hearted business owner, “a small, gruff, and decidedly plain woman with a sharp tongue who sold the world an exquisitely beautiful wine and an ethereal fantasy.”

Mireille on Champagne

“With the recent addition of a Paris–Reims TGV, one can easily visit the Champagne region for a day, but ideally an overnight or even two to three days make a winning difference. Especially if staying at Les Crayères (64 boulevard Henry-Vasnier / lescrayeres.com), a top hotel and restaurant located in a huge park in Reims with three restaurants, from haute gastronomy to more casual to a super brasserie. Visiting the city and region in May or June or early fall is ideal. The weather and vineyards are superb. Driving across the quaint, grape-growing hillside villages with their manicured vineyards, and stopping for dinner at my favorite country restaurant, Le Grand Cerf in Montchenot (50 Route Nationale 51 / le-grand-cerf.fr), is my idea of a weekend in the country. Experiencing a few Champagne houses is, of course, a must to discover the complexities around each bubbly: my favorite cellars belong to Ruinart (small), Taittinger or Pommery (medium), and Veuve Clicquot (larger but discreet). One should not neglect the center of Reims for its famous cathedral, whether you go for the rosace (rose window), the stained-glass windows by Chagall, the viticultural panels, or the grisailles (monochrome paintings in shades of gray typically painted on the outside panels of altarpieces). And don’t leave Reims without stocking up on the famous biscuits de Reims—pink cookies that are a little crunchy on the outside and soft inside that were originally meant for dipping in Champagne—available in pâtisseries near the cathedral, notably