The Widow Clicquot

The Widow Clicquot is the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling business biography of the visionary young widow who built a champagne empire, became a legend in her tumultuous times, and showed the world how to live with style.

Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life the woman behind the label, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, in this intoxicating book that is as much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman.

 

From the reviews:

Mazzeo’s tale moves swiftly through Barbe-Nicole’s many accomplishments, including her method for storing bottles nose-down — an innovation that allowed the second fermentation detritus to be cleared efficiently, setting her far ahead of her competitors.

– Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

Told in a light and graceful style that is just right for its subject, ‘The Widow Clicquot’ takes us on a journey from a well-stocked wine shop in the American Midwest to the dusty Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin company archives in Reims. It’s a fascinating trip, made even more so by Ms. Mazzeo’s charming cameo
appearances as a kind of a tour guide.

– Julia Flynn Siler, The Wall Street Journal

‘The Widow Clicquot,” Tilar J. Mazzeo’s sweeping oenobiography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, is the story of a woman who was a smashing success long before anyone conceptualized the glass ceiling.

– Jane and Michael Stern, New York Times

Cheers to the Widow Clicquot…Mazzeo’s book is an enticing stew of biography and history.

– Michelle Archer, USA Today

If you like champagne, ‘The Widow Clicquot’ by Tilar J. Mazzeo is definitely worth a drink.

– Rebecca Santana, AP

Tilar J. Mazzeo’s informed and enlightening biography of Madame Clicquot, the widow and, more important, the businesswoman, retrieves her vintage story as if looking for a rare bottle in one of the Champagne region’s deepest caves.

– Newsday

Joan of Arc and Madame Clicquot were the two women heroes I knew when growing up in France. What a gift to have this new, well-researched biography of one of the world’s first ‘legitimate’ businesswoman, our contemporary as a global business leader.

– Mireille Guiliano, French Women Don’t Get Fat

The Widow Clicquot is someone we should all know about…. Long a shadowy, legend-obscured figure, in Tilar Mazzeo’s agile hands the widow sheds her weeds and takes form before our eyes as a distinctly modern entrepreneur….The result is narrative history that fizzes with life and feeling.

– Benjamin Wallace, The Billionaire’s Vinegar

Where to purchase:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Powell’s Books
Indie Bound