Robert Joseph explains that: Robert Joseph, French Wine Revised and Updated (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2005).
“the nature of the terroir contributes greatly”: Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie; ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Neufchastel [sic]: Samuel Faulche, 1765), vol. 17, p. 292.
properties in the heart of the French wine country: Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, tasting-room promotional materials.
Traveling in an open carriage: Detail in various sources, including Gmeline, p. 16; Chimay, p. 3.
in the Champagne the roses come tumbling out of the sides of the vineyards: David G. James, “Opportunities for Reducing Pesticide Use in Management of Leafhoppers, Cutworms, and Thrips,” conference proceedings of the Washington State Grape Society (2002), available at www.grapesociety.org. James writes: “Roses have been cultivated in and around vineyards in Europe and Australia for many years and for many reasons…as an indicator for powdery mildew,” p. 3.
the Cattier family: Interview, January 19, 2007, Philippe Bienvenue; also Champagne Cattier promotional materials.
small commission of around 10 percent: Brennan, p. 269.
CHAPTER THREE: CHAMPAGNE DREAMS
Clicquot-Muiron were shipping about 15,000 bottles: Brennan, p. 269.
champagne is ranked from driest to sweetest: Stevenson, p. 200; see also Syndicat Professionnel des Courtiers en Vins de Champagne, available at www.spcvc.com/memento.php?go=6.
The Russians liked it sweeter still: Tomes, p. 68; also Henry Vizetelly, Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines, Collected During Numerous Visits to the Champagne and Other Viticultural Districts of France and the Principal Remaining Wine-Producing Countries of Europe (London: Ward, Lock, & Co., 1879), pp. 192, 198, 214.
Château d’Yquem: Promotional fact sheets, 2001 vintage, available at www.yquem.fr; promotional fact sheets, Grgich Hills, available at www.grgich.com.
“a faint redish colour like Champane wine”: OED, “champagne”; according to the same entry, in 1903 “champagne” was “a beautiful shade of pale straw, with a suggestion of pink about it.”
“Oiel du Pedrix”: Anonymous [S. J.], The Vineyard, Being a Treatise Shewing the Nature and Method of Planting, Manuring, Cultivating, and Dressing Vines (London: W. Mears, 1727), p. 46.
brandy often tinted the wine a light golden brown: Phillips, p. 243.
“Gray wine is made with black grapes”: Charles Joseph Ligne, Prince de, Mémoires et mélanges historiques et littéraires (Paris: A. Dupont, 1827–1829).
Under current French law, champagne is still made: Liger-Belair, p. 19. Complete guidelines for winemakers in the Champagne AOC are provided by the governing professional bodies, including the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, available at www.champagne.fr, and the Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité, available at www.inao.gouv.fr. For a scholarly account of the history of champagne regulation, see Kolleen Guy, When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of National Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).
nobody put labels on their bottles: André Simon, History of the Champagne Trade in England (London: Wyman & Sons, 1905): “During the second half of the eighteenth century…there were no labels of any shape or form and the consumer never inquired about the name of the man who had made the wine,” p. 59.
half the pressure champagne makers use today: Liger-Belair, p. 15; champagne today is generally bottled at up to 6 atmospheres (14.7 pounds per square inch) of pressure. Because the internal pressure is reduced when the temperature is lowered, bubbles last longer in chilled champagne.
appearance of vines in the area around Reims to the fourth century AD: Roger Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin en France (Paris: Flammarion, 1959).
finding a way to get rid of the bubbles: Various sources, including Liger-Belair, p. 9; see also René Gandilhon, Naissance du Champagne: Dom Pierre Pérignon (Paris: Hachette, 1968); François Bonal, Dom Pérignon: Vérité et légende (Langres: D. Guéniot, 1995).
extends across the English Channel to Great Britain: On recent growth in the British sparkling wine industry, see Mark Phillips, “Global Warming Spawns Wine in U.K.,” CBS Evening News, September 25, 2006, available at www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/25/eveningnews/main2037991.shtml; and Valerie Elliott, “English Wine Sparkles as Global Climate Warms Up,” The Times, September 11, 2006, available at www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article635009.ece. Historical evidence suggests that Great Britain once had a flourishing wine trade; see D. Williams, “A Consideration of the Sub-Fossil Remains of ‘Vitis vinifera’ L. as Evidence of Viticulture in Roman Britain,” Britannia 8 (1977): 327–334; and William Hughes, The Compleat Vineyards, or, A Most Excellent Way for the Planting of Wines Not Onely [sic] According to the German and French Way, but Also Long Experimented in England (London: W. Crooke, 1665).
wine known as piquette: Classified in the “Working Paper,” European Commission Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development: Wine, Common Market Organisation, 2006, which bans its export; see http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/markets/wine/studies/rep_cmo2006_en.pdf, p. 21.
the devil’s wine: Kladstrup, p. 46.
Hautvillers didn’t even start bottling their wines: Brennan, p. 251.
wealthy British consumers: An argument first put forward by Tom Stevenson, World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine (San Francisco: Wine Appreciation Guild, 1999).
Great Britain was producing far stronger and less expensive glass: See Ward Lloyd, A Wine Lover’s Glasses: The A. C. Hubbard Jr. Collection of Antique English Drinking Glasses and Bottles (Yeovil, UK: Richard Dennis, 2000); Roger Dumbrell, Understanding Antique Wine Bottles (San Francisco: Antique Collector’s Club, 1983).
Charles de Saint-Évremond: Born Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, Seigneur de Saint-Évremond (1610–1703); an edition of his writings on gourmet pleasures has been edited by Claude Taittinger, Saint-Évremond, ou, Le bon usage des plaisirs (Paris: Perrin, 1990). On Saint-Évremond’s time in Great Britain, see Walter Daniels, Saint-Évremond en Angleterre (Versailles: L. Luce, 1907).
Merrett’s lecture on winemaking: Christopher Merrett, Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines (London: William Whitwood, 1692).
John Evelyn’s Pomona: John Evelyn, Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. By J. E. Esq. As it was deliver’d in the Royal Society the XVth of October, MDCLXII…To which is annexed Pomona; or, an appendix concerning fruit-trees in relation to cider (London: Joseph Martyn & James Allestry, 1664).
a full decade before the wine was first produced in France: Liger-Belair, p. 10; Brennan, p. 249; Delpal, p. 127.
owned lucrative property in the Champagne: Kladstrup, p. 50; see also Christine Pevitt, Madame de Pompadour: Mistress of France (New York: Grove Press, 2002).
50 percent of it was sold directly to the palace at Versailles: Brennan, p. 255.
CHAPTER FOUR: ANONYMITY IN THEIR BLOOD
The country had been at war since the early days: The history of the Napoleonic Wars (often chronicled as a continuation of the wars that followed from the French Revolution) can be understood in a general way by talking of a series of coalitions. But the truth of the matter is that throughout the period, dozens of countries or principalities were involved, and they were often engaged in maddeningly complex multilateral conflicts.
The war of the First Coalition, a French victory principally over Austria and the Italian states, formally ended in 1797 and extended the boundaries of France as far as the Rhine River. This was economically important for the Champagne region in particular. Even after the treaty in 1797, France remained at war with Great Britain.
The Second Coalition focuses on the years from 1798 until about 1805 and pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the Italian states. There was a peace with Austria and most of the coalition members in February 1801, an
d a peace with Great Britain was set out in the Treaty of Amiens, brokered in March 1802. Until May 1803—for fourteen months—there was a brief peace in France.
In 1804, Napoléon crowned himself the emperor of France, and by 1805 a Third Coalition of primarily Russia, Great Britain, and Austria had developed. This period of the conflict was focused largely on Napoléon’s plans to conquer Great Britain, which were ended with the defeat at Trafalgar in the autumn. Napoléon also famously defeated the Austrians at Austerlitz at the end of the year.
The Fourth Coalition was France primarily against Prussia, Russia, Great Britain, and some of the German states and ended with Napoléon’s conquest over Prussia in 1806 and over Russia in 1807. In 1806, France introduced the Continental System—a series of trade restrictions aimed at isolating Great Britain from world trade and bringing about an economic conquest. By at least 1810, many people in France were either buying or selling contraband goods in defiance of the ban, which lasted until 1812.
From 1809 until 1812, the Fifth Coalition largely pitted Great Britain and Austria against France. Importantly for Barbe-Nicole’s champagne dreams, the Russian market was theoretically (if not practically) open to French traders from 1807 to 1812. However, it was Russia’s refusal to blockade British goods that led, in part, to Napoléon’s disastrous invasion of the country in 1812.
After Napoléon’s wintertime retreat from Russia, the Sixth Coalition formed to take advantage of his weakness, with Prussia, Austria, and the German states joining Russia and Great Britain. In the summer of 1813, there was a brief period of peace from early June to mid-August, and by the spring of 1814 Napoléon had been defeated in France. The French king was restored, and Napoléon was shipped off to exile. Then, with his characteristic pluck, Napoléon famously returned to France in 1815 for the so-called Hundred Days, in a last-ditch effort to save his empire. He was finally defeated at Waterloo by the Seventh Coalition: Russia, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, and Germany. For a detailed historical overview, see Gunther Rothenberg, The Napoleonic Wars (New York: Collins, 2006).
one-in-twenty chance of dying as a result of the delivery: On infant and maternal mortality in eighteenth-century France, see Yves Blayo, “La mortalité en France de 1740 à 1829,” Population (November 1975): 124–142; Nancy Senior, “Aspects of Infant Feeding in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 16, no. 4 (Summer 1983): 367–388; Nina Rattner Gelbart, The King’s Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); and Jenny Carter and Therese Duriez, With Child: Birth Through the Ages (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1986). On British mortality rates, but nevertheless useful, is Jona Schelleken, “Economic Change and Infant Mortality in England, 1580–1837,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32, no. 1 (Summer 2001): 1–11.
widow named Thérèse: Thérèse Pinchart (1775–1859) married Jean-Louis Doé de Maindreville (d. 1798), a parliamentary lawyer, in 1795. Their son, Pierre (1796–1870), was born the following year, and she was widowed in 1798.
Clémentine and Thérèse quickly established themselves: Crestin-Billet, p. 15.
It is probably not a coincidence that the public still thought of them both as whores: Susan P. Conner, “Public Virtue and Public Women: Prostitution in Revolutionary Paris, 1793–1794,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 28, no. 2 (Winter 1994): 221–240, writes that “in the name of ‘virtue’ they had executed Marie-Antoinette, the quintessential whore of the eighteenth century,” p. 222. The infidelities of Joséphine Bonaparte, meanwhile, were legend; on the political use made of her indiscretions by her enemies, see, for example, Evangeline Bruce, Napoleon and Josephine: An Improbable Marriage (New York: Scribner, 1995).
“Anonymity runs in their blood”: Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1981), p. 50.
Lady Bessborough: Quoted in Woolf, p. 55; see also Janet Gleeson, Privilege and Scandal: The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana (New York: Crown, 2007).
“A prejudice against women acting in the marketplace”: Bonnie G. Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoisies of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 47; Code Napoléon; or, The French Civil Code. Literally Translated from the Original and Official Edition, Published at Paris, in 1804, trans. George Spence (London: William Benning, 1827).
Today, wine tasting is a multimillion-dollar tourist industry: According to the Sonoma County Tourism Board, wine tourism generates over $1 billion in revenue in Sonoma County, California, alone; statistics available at www.sonomacounty.com.
expect to find their wines labeled: Tomes, p. 173.
“opportunities for women to participate in rebuilding the industry”: Ann B. Matasar, Women of Wine: The Rise of Women in the Global Wine Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 75.
Dame Geoffrey…Widow Germon: Brennan, pp. 261–262.
Widow Robert and the Widow Blanc: Brennan, p. 261; Claire Desbois-Thibault, L’extraordinaire aventure du Champagne Moët et Chandon, une affaire de famille (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2003), p. 31; Etienne, p. 59.
Historian Béatrice Craig: Béatrice Craig, “Where Have All the Businesswomen Gone?: Images and Reality in the Life of Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class Women in Northern France,” in Women, Business and Finance in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Rethinking Separate Spheres, eds. Robert Beachy, Béatrice Craig, and Alastair Owens (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006), p. 54.
salesman from Mannheim, Germany: Alain de Vogüé, Une maison de vins de champagne au temps du blocus continental, 1806–1812, thesis for the Diplôme d’Études Supérieures d’Histoire, June 1948, p. 3.
grand plan for selling wines in Great Britain: Ibid.
luxuries like French wine and silk had been contraband: Gavin Daly, “Napoleon and the ‘City of Smugglers,’ 1810–1814,” Historical Journal 50, no. 2 (June 2007): 333–352; for a more complete account of Anglo-French trade relations during the Napoleonic period, see François Crouzet, L’économie britannique et le blocus continental (Paris: Economica, 1987).
mildly effervescent champagne known as crémant: Etienne, p. 96.
more than half the weekly salary of many of the people: Brennan, p. 261.
If his portraits are any indication, Jean-Rémy: Promotional display materials, Champagne Moët et Chandon, Reims; portraits reproduced in Victor Fiévet, Jean-Rémy Moët et ses successeurs (Paris: E. Dentu, 1864).
since the heyday of the 1730s: Brennan, p. 198.
a deal for the sale of two or three thousand bottles of nearly flat champagne: Etienne, p. 96.
“The day very hot”: Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journals, ed. Pamela Woof (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 125.
“In the memory of man”: Quoted in Etienne, p. 36; letter of August 20, 1802.
Allart de Maisonneuve woke up to find: Brennan, p. 252.
“foundation of an entirely different commercial system”: Fiévet, Madame Veuve Clicquot, p. 56.
CHAPTER FIVE: CRAFTING THE CUVÉE
Jean-Antoine Chaptal’s treatise: Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal, Comte de Chanteloup, L’art de faire le vin (Paris: Madame Huzard, 1819).
“a decisive turning point in the history of wine technology”: Jerry B. Gough, “Winecraft and Chemistry in Eighteenth-Century France: Chaptal and the Invention of Chaptalization,” Technology and Culture 39, no. 1 (January 1998): 74–104, 102.
Napoléon ordered departmental prefects throughout France: Gough, p. 102.
worth three times what it sold for by the barrel: Brennan, p. 250.
springtime moon had the power to raise a tide of bubbles: Louis Saint-Pierre, The Art of Planting and Cultivating the Vine; and Also of Making, Fining, and Preserving Wines, &c. (London: n.p., 1722), p. 230.
ancient festival of St. Vincent: Émile Moreau, Le culte de Saint Vincent en Champagne (Épernay: Éditions le Vigneron de la Champagne, 1936).
g
uests consumed a thousand bottles in a night: Desbois-Thibault, p. 35.
his own boyhood in the region: Napoléon spent five years at the military academy in Briennes-le-Château (Aube); “Napoleon I,” Encyclopædia Britannica Online, available at http://www.search.eb.com.prxy5.ursus.maine.edu/eb/article-9108752; see also Alexandre Assier, Napoléon Ier à l’École Royale Militaire de Brienne d’après des documents authentiques et inédits, 1779–1784 (Paris: n.p., 1874). Jean-Rémy Moët was educated at the same academy, and there is a charming tradition that tells how the two young men first became friends as students. Unfortunately, the dates of their attendance do not correspond. However, it seems likely that their shared experiences at Brienne provided a foundation for the warm personal relationship that developed in later years. On Moët’s education, see Desbois-Thibault, p. 26, n. 1.
books such as Jean Godinot’s: Jean Godinot, Manière de cultiver et de faire le vin en Champagne (1722), ed. François Bonal (Langres: Dominique Guéniot, 1990); Nicolas Bidet, Traité sur la culture des vignes, sur la façon du vin, et sur la manière de le gouverner: Ouvrage orné de figures, & en particulier de celle d’un pressoir d’une nouvelle invention (Paris: Chez Savoye, 1752).
According to local custom, it lasted for twelve days: The so-called bans de vendange had their origins in medieval feudalism; today, the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, a trade organization comprising growers and champagne producers, regulates all aspects of the champagne harvest, in collaboration with the French government; details available at www.champagne.fr.
favorite haunt at harvest-time was in the village of Bouzy: Etienne, p. 32.
première taille, or the first cutting: Anonymous [S. J.], The Vineyard, pp. 49–52.
some unlucky people find that it gives them a pounding headache: Medical scientists distinguish between a typically mild reaction to red wine known as “red wine headache,” or RWH, which is thought to result either from a histamine or prostaglandins response or from a reaction to tannins, and a sometimes much more serious and potentially fatal sulfite allergy. See, for example, A. T. Bakalinsky, “Sulfites, Wine and Health,” in Wine in Context: Nutrition, Physiology, Policy: Proceedings of the Symposium on Wine and Health, eds. Andrew L. Waterhouse and R. M. Rantz (Davis, Calif.: American Society for Enology and Viticulture, 1996); C. S. Stockley, “Histamine: The Culprit for Headaches?” Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal 11 (1996): 42–44.
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