I love champagne. I love the teeny tiny bubbles that flow up from the bottom of the flute, which is the signal that I am drinking the good stuff. Big "bulle de crapaud" bubbles often signal that the wine is more cheaply created.
Good champagne is made using secondary fermentation in the bottle. That secondary fermentation happens when yeast is introduced to the bottle, the reaction of it to the still wine, besides creating the bubbles, leaves a sediment behind. This used to stick to the sides of the bottle, making the champagne cloudy.
But the champagne that we buy is not cloudy; thanks to a woman from the 18th century, Madame Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot. She is also known as Veuve Clicquot, which should sound quite familiar to champagne enthusiasts. She was a woman who was definitely ahead of her time and who invented the process of riddling, which concentrates the sediment left behind during bottle fermentation in the neck of the bottle so that it can be expelled, leaving behind beautiful, bubbly and clear champagne.
During their short marriage, Barbe-Nicole had become interested in the wine making part of the Clicquot industry. After the death of François, la Veuve Clicquot was given permission by her father in law to continue this venture.
About this time, Barbe-Nicole was determined to improve the cloudy look of the champagne that they were selling. She cut holes in her kitchen table to accommodate bottles, which were placed in the holes by the neck; that allowed all the sediment to settle behind the stopper. After some improvements, the riddling process was born. It is still used to this day, either manually or currently by machine.
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| Riddling in action |
la Veuve Clicquot was also a master in marketing, selling champagne to the Russians - where it became the official champagne of Tsar Alexander I and its royal court. By the time of her death in 1866, champagne of the Maison Clicquot was known and popular throughout the world.
Madame Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Cliquot, la Veuve Clicquot, was an amazing woman. In her day, women went from their family home to their husband's home; they had children, took care of the family, and didn't have many rights. It is rumored that la Veuve Clicquot had many lovers after the death of her husband she never remarried; doing that would have handed the reins of her empire over to her new husband. In a letter to one of her grandchildren, Barbe-Nicole wrote, “The world is in perpetual motion, and we must invent the things of tomorrow. One must go before others, be determined and exacting, and let your intelligence direct your life. Act with audacity.” Yes, we should. After that next glass of Veuve Clicquot.
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| Madame Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot and granddaughter |
To read more about this audacious woman:
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