Recommended Biography: The Widow Clicquot by Tilar J Mazzeo
Discover the sparkling story of how the woman behind Veuve Clicquot created an iconic champagne house and became one of the richest women of her era.
My Rating: ★★★★★
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Released: 2010
Key Takeaways for Personal Branding
Tilar J Mazzeo brilliantly tells the story of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, the extraordinary woman behind the iconic Veuve Clicquot champagne.
Whether you’re a business owner, history buff or consider yourself a champagne connoisseur, the book is a must-read. It offers an enthralling insight into the life of an entrepreneur whose brand, centuries on, has stood the test of time.
Widowed suddenly as a young mother in her twenties, Madame Clicquot turned her late husband’s fledgling wine business into one of the world’s most distinguished champagne houses. Dubbed the Queen of Champagne, she battled the tumultuous French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars to rise to fame and fortune. In a remarkable testament to her talent, instincts and resilience, the bold business leader would, by her 40s, become one of the richest women of her era.
Technically savvy leadership
Madame Clicquot was not simply just the face of the business or the money behind the brand. She actively developed her winemaking skills, learning directly from the experts. When some scoffed at her ideas, she experimented secretly herself to pioneer techniques that underpin the industry’s success to date. For example, she is credited with developing the riddling method, which is the process used to clear sediment from the champagne through tilting and rotating bottles to move the debris to the neck of the bottle. This is a crucial step in creating the clear champagne that dazzles us to this day.
Building relationships
Outside of her technical and innovative prowess, Madame Clicquot also proved that a people-oriented approach powers profits. She worked all day and into the night until usually around 10 pm, ensuring each and every correspondence was attended to. Instead of the emails many work through today, she painstakingly wrote or responded to handwritten letters to keep essential business relationships alive.
Timeless branding
While Madame Clicquot's era would precede the proliferation of wine labels, her branding and marketing instincts were still astute. Her husband, Philippe, had first used the brand’s famous anchor symbol when he was running the business. An enduring symbol of hope, the widow understood the power of meaningful connections in branding and retained that anchor on the champagne corks after her husband’s passing. Now, as a timeless symbol of storytelling, the anchor remains a prominent feature of the brand today.
The Widow Clicquot by Tilar J Mazzeo: Available on Amazon.
