This story from Tilar Mazzeo is about champagne but it also is about taking risk and the Widow Clicquot took many.
There were a lot of what are called “golden nuggets” of wisdom and factoids in this book. Did you know, for instance, that the founding home of champagne is England? Or that champagne was brown at one time? Or that Russia was THE market to break into?
And that is just industry origin story. Not even getting into the story of the Widow and how she came to be in charge of a large corporation through good times and bad. The sad fact being that she (and other contemporaries of the time) could be in charge because champagne was a declining, unfavored business. If it had been popular, men would have pushed her aside.
The fact that the author could glean so much information about a person with so little written about her is amazing.
To drink, well, that may be difficult if you can’t find one of these new Brut IPA’s or a champagne yeast beer. But since Napoleon figures in the story, a good all-purpose choice would be a Berliner Weisse. Maybe a wine grape version.