by Sommelier Robin Obert
This month I’m writing a small bit of history about an incredible woman who founded a process as well as an amazing business that allows us to afford and enjoy the wonderful thing that is Champagne. More specifically the Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin out of Reims France.
The story begins in 1789 which was the beginning of the French Revolution, a moment in history that would forever change the direction of one little girl’s life. This little girl was residing in the royal convent of Saint- Pierre-les-Dames on the outskirts of the center of Reims France. The daughter of an aristocrat, she was sent to this particular convent to assure that she would receive a respectable education and be assured safety. This was the case until July of 1789 when suddenly this particular safe haven became one of the most dangerous places that she could be.
Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin was in grave danger as the social elite quickly became targets of angry mobs. Nuns and children were being brutalized and raped. It was a desperate situation for this little girl. There was no way for her parents to come to her aid, she was trapped. But, there was one woman who could get to her, one incredibly courageous woman, the family dressmaker. This woman of modest means was able to slip by the rioting crowds, sneak into the convent and find Barbe-Nicole. She quickly changed her into peasant clothing and fled with her through the streets, safely returning her to her home. Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin did not reside in just any home, her father was quite a wealthy textile business owner and had built an amazing mansion that was (and still is to this day) referred to as Hotel Ponsardin.
The changes the revolution evoked formed a very new future for Barbe-Nicole. The French Revolution began the evolution of capitalism. The public began forming businesses and purchasing goods which allowed them a new status. These former peasants were realizing that clothing was very important. No longer did their attire reflect their unfortunate lot in life, clothing began to reflect their status. Textiles became very important to them. This further increased the wealth of the Ponsardin family. Barbe-Nicole became very versed in business and politics throughout her childhood. Francois-Marie Clicquot had joined his father’s champagne business just months before marrying Barbe-Nicole. Six years later Francois-Marie would die and the family business would fall into her lap.
I leave you with this for now, next month I’ll talk about how this incredible woman would one day change the history of champagne forever!
Reims and the Chalk Beneath It
The city at the center of this story sits on a thick bed of chalk, and that geology shaped everything that happened above it. Chalk drains readily, holds water in reserve for dry spells, and reflects light back into the vines, which matters at a latitude where ripening is never guaranteed.
Beneath the streets are tunnels and pits cut into that chalk, some of them originally quarries dating to Roman occupation, later extended into miles of cellars. They hold a constant cool temperature and high humidity without any machinery at all, which is exactly what bottles undergoing a slow second fermentation require.
The hillsides, houses, and cellars of the region were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015, recognizing the whole system rather than any single site. The vineyards, the merchant houses, and the underground galleries were listed together because none of them explains the place on its own.
Why Widows Ran So Many Wine Houses
A woman inheriting and directing a major commercial enterprise in this period was unusual but not accidental. French law and custom gave a widow standing that a married woman did not have, since a wife’s property and legal capacity were largely absorbed by her husband. Widowhood restored the ability to sign contracts and control capital.
Family firms were also structured so that the business and the household were the same institution. When the head of the house died, the enterprise did not pass to a distant board but to whoever was already inside it, and that was frequently the widow.
The word veuve on a label is simply the French for widow, and its presence on several long-established houses records this pattern rather than any marketing idea. It marked continuity at a moment when a business might otherwise have been dismantled.
| Factor | Northern France | Warm-climate region |
|---|---|---|
| Ripening | Slow and marginal in cool years | Reliable, sometimes too rapid |
| Natural acidity | High, preserved by the cool season | Falls quickly as sugar rises |
| Harvest timing | Late, into autumn | Early, often the first fruit picked |
| Vintage variation | Pronounced; blending across years is standard | Modest; single years are more consistent |
| Cellar conditions | Naturally cool chalk galleries | Usually requires refrigeration |
The Revolution’s Effect on the Wine Trade
The upheaval that opens this story did more than endanger one child in a convent. Church and noble estates were seized and sold, which redistributed a great deal of vineyard land into the hands of merchants and farmers who had never owned any. Property that had been held for centuries changed hands within a few years.
Guild restrictions fell at the same time, removing many of the rules governing who could practice a trade. The result was an opening for commercial families with capital and no aristocratic lineage, which is precisely the position the Ponsardin family occupied.
Instability followed, of course. Warfare closed markets, currency collapsed and was rebuilt, and shipping was hazardous for two decades. Fortunes were made by people willing to operate anyway.
Vineyard ownership fragmented as a result, and it has never fully consolidated. To this day a large share of the region’s vines belongs to thousands of small growers rather than to the houses whose names appear on the labels, an arrangement that grew directly out of these years.
How the Bubbles Are Made
The method that made this region famous is straightforward to describe and demanding to execute. A dry base wine is made in the ordinary way, then bottled with a small addition of sugar and yeast, sealed, and left to ferment a second time inside the bottle where the carbon dioxide has nowhere to escape.
That second fermentation leaves spent yeast cells in the bottle, and removing them without losing the pressure is the difficult part. The bottles must be gradually tipped and turned so the sediment collects in the neck, then that neck is chilled and the plug of sediment expelled before the final cork goes in.
Long contact with the spent yeast is also what gives these wines their characteristic bread-like depth, so the sediment is a nuisance and an asset at once. Sparkling wine appears throughout our guide to wine for celebrations for reasons that are as practical as they are festive.
Champagne Background FAQ
Can any sparkling wine be called Champagne?
Not under European rules, which reserve the name for wine produced within the delimited region under its own regulations. Other countries have their own arrangements, and several traditional names remain in limited use in the United States for historical reasons.
Why is the region so far north?
Because sparkling wine benefits from grapes that would be considered underripe elsewhere. High acidity and moderate alcohol make a better base wine than lush ripeness, which is why cool, marginal areas produce the best examples.
Where does the rest of this story appear?
The account continues across several installments gathered in our hot topics archive, and related material sits in the newsletter archive from the same years. Each installment was written a month apart and follows the family in sequence.