The Widow Clicquot

The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It

By Tilar J. Mazzeo
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780061288586, 304pp.)

Publication Date: September 16, 2009

Categories: Business, Historical - General, Women

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the November 2008 Indie Next List

Tilar J. Mazzeo is a cultural historian and biographer, and a passionate student of wine and food culture. An assistant professor at Colby College in Maine, she divides her time between the California wine country and New York City.

"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."
-Los Angeles Times

"Told in a light and graceful style that is just right for its subject.. [I]t's a fascinating trip, made even more so by Ms. Mazzeo's charming cameo appearances as a kind of tour guide.. This example of Barbe-Nicole's voice is exceptional.an intoxicating business biography."
-Julia Flynn Siler, The Wall Street Journal

"If you like champagne, "The Widow Clicquot" by Tilar J. Mazzeo is definitely worth a drink."
-Associated Press

"This book is full of fascinating morsels of information."
-Canberra Times

"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, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Billionaire's Vinegar

"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."
-New York Times Book Review

"Mazzeo's resulting book is an enticing stew of biography and history."
-USA Today

The Widow Clicquot is a miraculous feat of organization, one worthy of a doctoral thesis.. [I]n its moments of action, this is actually a gripping story. And while the book appears to be a feminist history/business biography, it's also the appealing story of the author's odyssey.
-Austin Chronicle

"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, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, French Women Don't Get Fat