Petersburg on board more than 10000 bottles

Imperial: thus appears Ms. Clicquot on his portrait painted by Léon Cogniet between 1851 and 1861. Sitting on a scarlet cloth covered Chair, a book open on the knees, it has, despite the Impasto due to age, the right eye and voluntary traits of a Queen. "His chair was a throne and the last years of his life a reign", also wrote a contemporary author. Sovereign, that is called "the great Lady of Champagne" was, in fact. First woman to lead a House of champagne, voluntary and informed business woman, she wore high the colours of the Clicquot House, shipping its bottles in Europe and particularly in Russia, the great case of his life...

Nothing, yet not intended Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, this daughter of rémois notables, to take the head of a House of champagne and to give his name to one of the best wines of the region. When she was born in Reims in 1777, his father, Nicholas Ponsardin, part of the elite of the traders of the city. Two years earlier, in 1775, he resumed the textile factory founded by his father in 1728 and who enjoys a little everywhere in France, an excellent reputation. Prudent, Nicholas Ponsardin was able to safely cross the French Revolution, even a time joining rémoise antenna of the Club of the jacobins is the big man, in Paris, Robespierre. Mayor of Reims and baron under the Empire, found royalist during the first restoration, Bonapartist in the hundred days, and new royalist after 1815, which earned him to keep the city of Reims. When he died in 1820, this trader prosperous and respected, who lives as an aristocrat in his mansion, which the route is typical of that of the economic elite of his time, leaves a comfortable fortune whose daughter will inherit in part.

Widow at twenty-eight years

Of the youth of Barbe-Nicole, we know nothing, or almost. No doubt was happy and uneventful. In 1798, this girl of twenty-one years educated in good manners is married to François Clicquot. Aged 24, he is the son of Philippe Clicquot, an important banker and rémois textile dealer who founded in 1772 a House of champagne in his name. Developed in the 17th century according to tradition, by a monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Hautvillers - famous Dom Pérignon - champagne then knows a growing success, not only France, but also everywhere in Europe where, prestige of the French way of life requires, its reputation is growing. It is also for this reason that Philippe Clicquot has decided to create his own home, leaving little by little its other activities and criss-crossing Europe to sell its production. With his contemporaries Claude Moët and Louis Heidsieck, Philippe Clicquot is thus one of the great pioneers of the internationalization of the champagne will continue, in the following century, Mumm, toy or Bollinger. When his son joined the François, in 1796, after several years in a Swiss Bank House, the Clicquot House produces about 8,000 bottles per year, which it ships in France but also in all the courses in Germany, particularly eager French wines. Trader, but also financial, François Clicquot made what is still a modest facility a real company. Still on the roads, it opens new markets, including in Switzerland, in Italy, in Austria, Bavaria, in Poland, Sweden and especially Russia, the priority of the House. Under his leadership, the production is 8000 bottles in 1796 to 18,000 in 1801, 26,000 in 1802 and 60,000 in 1804!

To respond to commands, François is develop new cellars in Reims and begun to recruit officials to explore the various courts of Europe. It was then that came the drama: in October 1805, return of one of his countless journeys, he brutally away by a bad fever. He has thirty-one years.

Since her marriage in 1798, Barbe-Nicole led, as befits a woman of the community, the story of a wife and a mother of family life, devoting most of his time to the education of his daughter Clementine. The sudden death of her husband has any questioning. Widowed at twenty-eight years, Barbe-Nicole is at the crossroads. Live in Keri until the end of his days The young woman might have, just as it could have decided to return to her mother. Against the advice of his father-in-law, collapsed and who intends to sell the case, she yet chose to take the suite of François and fully ensure the direction of the Clicquot House. A first in the world of champagne, including companies, then, are all headed by men. But also a real risk to this very young woman again and that, until then, completely held away from the Affairs of her husband. Taste for action Desire to continue the work of François Perhaps a bit of both. A man has also played a key role in the decision of Barbe-Nicole: Louis Bohne. Recruited by François in 1801, it is one of the most talented representatives of the Clicquot House, including in Russia where he regularly long stays. A young widow, he emphasized the need to carry out the business begun by François. Until his premature death in 1821 - following a fall from a bridge-, Louis Bohne will be one of the most loyal support of Ms. Clicquot and, at his side, one of great craftsmen of the development of the House.

In early 1806, Veuve Clicquot, as we will now call it, became officially associated with the House founded thirty-five years earlier by Philippe Clicquot now definitively withdrawn cases. The context is much less favourable than two or three years earlier. Since April, 1805, the Russia has indeed joined Britain in the third Coalition directed against the France, closing de facto Russian market

François Clicquot had been a priority. It adds, from 1806, the continental blockade to suffocate the English economy, but which has consequently almost totally paralyze traffic, in the English channel, North Sea and the Mediterranean. In the space of a few months, the number of bottles shipped by the Clicquot House fell 60,000 to 10,000! Test for Veuve Clicquot. In the face of adversity, it is evidence of a remarkable sense of business and an uncommon strength of character, organizing land shipments across Europe, reducing as much as possible costs, partnering, a time, with rémoise home stoves & co. to share risk.

Clandestine shipments

The actual flight of Veuve Clicquot, it is in fact from 1810 that occurs. This year, breaking with home furnaces, it creates a new home under the name Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin. Four years, she has struggled closes to circumvent the continental blockade, the amount of shipments clandestine from Holland and to the ports of the Baltic, there sometimes losing cargo whole - as thousands of bottles lost off the coast of Amsterdam-, coming year wrong year to maintain a regular business stream. The peace of Tilsit, signed with the Russia in 1807, he was, again to the Russian market. But victims of widespread mistrust which then affects French products, home sales have never recovered the levels of before the war and it took all the ingenuity of Louis Bohne, virtually at home in St. Petersburg and working under the close supervision of the tsar officers - who see in him a spy French - that the Russian market does not close completely. Paradoxically, the continental blockade imposed by Napoleon - on Earth - and English - on sea - plays rather to home by creating a large economic zone open to French products. It was then that the Veuve Clicquot, following open once by her husband, decided to create a dense network of agents and representatives in Europe. Found in Italy, in the countries of Northern Europe, in the German courts and in Central Europe. Through them, home sales soar literally reaching almost 80,000 bottles in 1815!

But the case of the widow and of Louis Bohne, again and again, the Russian market. In 1812, during the Russia campaign, Louis Bohne had to hurriedly leave St. Petersburg, leaving that his personal effects and his stock of bottles! The abdication of Napoleon I, in April 1814, Veuve Clicquot offers a unique opportunity to return to. The history of this great return today is an integral part of the legend of the House Clicquot-Ponsardin. On 6 June 1814, while Louis XVIII has just take his quarters in the Tuileries, she charters a Dutch boat bound for St. Petersburg, on board, more than 10,000 bottles. The cargo is totally sold during a stopover in Königsberg, requiring the chartering in emergency, from Rouen, a second boat carrying almost 13,000 bottles. The day of his arrival in St. Petersburg, August 10, the Russia announced the lifting of the ban on imports of French wines in bottles. The stock is exhausted within two days! Great blow of fate that installs for more than a century the Veuve Clicquot - "klikofsoe" in Russian - as one of the main suppliers of the Court of Russia.

Legendary caution

This notoriety, Veuve Clicquot will strengthen it during the following decades, making the institution that bears his name one of the first French champagne houses. At the end of the 1820s, the company exports 250,000 bottles in Europe, but also in the United States where it has a representative. Meticulous, careful, the "grande dame of the Champagne" has the upper hand on the accounts that it monitors personally and that it carefully records every day, in small notebooks related leather. Concerned about the quality of its products, it looks very similar to the technique. Thus, in its cellars and during his "reign", that is invented remuage table, to print rotated brief and rapid bottles on themselves to clarify wine. She is also one of the first to customize its branding by affixing the secure sign - on plugs Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin - accompanied by a marine anchor, a reminder of the role played by the maritime expeditions in the history of the company. At Reims, no ignores that it traverses often cellars at night to ensure the evolution of its wines. Once, his legendary caution will be taken in default. In 1822 in effect, it creates a local bank whose vocation is to finance the rémois trading. The institution closed in 1827, leaving a debt of 700,000 francs and shaking a time the reputation of the House. For the rest, the widow relies more and more a few employees of choice. In the aftermath of the death of Louis Bohne, his man of confidence is Edouard Werlé, entered the House in 1820, which, in 1831, became associate of the House. Organizing outstanding, he would take home a new step in its history.

Partially withdrawn business since the beginning of the 1850s, the Veuve Clicquot died in 1866, at the age of eighty-nine years, not without having previously entrusted the keys of the House to Edouard Werlé. Little-known itself - it is never out of France - but having given its name to a prestigious brand of champagne, his death is of all gazettes in Europe. On that date, it is already eight years since 1858, that another widow took over the House of her late husband, Jeanne-Alexandrine Pommery champagnes. This area also, "the great Lady of Champagne" paved the way...

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