The opening sequence of Widow Clicquot, a new film about the origins of one of today’s most famous Champagne houses, sets us up for a tale about establishing a legacy.
“Looking back on that first day with you, I understood immediately why human beings are compelled to create,” says the titular character Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot as she takes in her husband’s vineyard: a seemingly endless tangle of vines in the gentle hills of Champagne’s Verzy commune. “With any luck, 100 years from now, someone will know that we were here.”
Two hundred-plus years later, we know that Madame Clicquot has achieved this recognition—at least, to a degree.
While “Clicquot” is the brand that was started by and named for her father-in-law, “Veuve,” as it’s colloquially called today, is French for “widow,” and has been the famed Champagne’s sobriquet since the early 1800s. But the story behind the brand’s singular heroine, the real-life widow, remains less known.
The film Widow Clicquot, based on a biography of the same name, hopes to change that by highlighting the early years in Barbe-Nicole’s life following the death of her husband, François Clicquot.
Given the Hollywood treatment of a classic hero’s journey, and the relatable human story about overcoming challenges, the drama zooms in on her struggles more than her triumphs.
In moody scenes that skip around in time, we see the challenges of being a woman in an almost exclusively male industry, the struggle of being a business owner in the geopolitical climate
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
