Media » Champagne Widows video
View a Champagne Widows video "book trailer" featuring Veuve Clicquot, the first woman of Champagne
The "book trailer" is based on the Champagne Widows novel by award-winning author Rebecca Rosenberg.
Champagne, France
The story takes place in 1800s Champagne, France, telling the tale of twenty-year-old Barbe-Nicole, who inherited Le Nez (an uncanny sense of smell) from her great-grandfather, a renowned champagne maker. Unfortunately, her parents see it as a curse and try to marry her off to an unsuspecting suitor. She is determined to use Le Nez to make great champagne, and Barbe-Nicole learns her childhood sweetheart, François Clicquot, wants to start a winery. She rejects her parents' suitors and marries François despite his mental illness.
The Widow Known as Veuve Clicquot
Soon, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot must cope with her husband's death. Becoming a widow known as Veuve Clicquot, she grapples with a new overbearing partner, the difficulties of making champagne and the Napoleonic Codes preventing women from owning a business.
Meanwhile, her father takes a military uniform contract from Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who wages six wars against European monarchs. This cripples Veuve Clicquot's ability to sell her champagne.
Challenging Napoleon
Using Le Nez, Veuve Clicquot struggles through unbearable hardships and challenges Napoleon himself. When she falls in love with her sales manager, Louis Bohne, who asks her to marry, she must choose between losing her winery to her husband, as dictated by the Napoleonic Code or losing Louis. In the ultimate showdown, Veuve Clicquot risks imprisonment and even death as she defies Napoleon.
