Reviews for Science of Vine and Wine in France, 1750-1990

The average rating for Science of Vine and Wine in France, 1750-1990 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-06-28 00:00:00 Tony Pollard Luvly bubbly! "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!", Dom Perignon, the cellar master of the ancient hillside abbey in the village of Hautvillers in the 1660s allegedly called out when his still wine developed unwanted bubbles. For many years he tried to find the source of his wine going 'bad'. Wine makers in the seventeenth century had a less charitable phrase for it. They called the bubbly vintage 'Devil's wine'. Nobody in France wanted fizzy wines. Yeux de crapaud. Frogs eyes, it was called. Those large bubbles. People liked large eyes everywhere, except in Champagne wine. In the meantime, however, other viticulteurs already had plans to market this unusual wine. Dom Perignon was not the first. And the French was not the first either. It was the British who saw the potential when the wine barrels from Champagne arrived and the quaint little bubbles tickled their noses and the dainty noises enchanted them. But this is not really the crux of the book. The genesis of champagne, through the history of France, have been used to build a fictional (speculative) biography around Madame Barbe-Nicole Clicquout, née Ponsardin, Widow Clicquot or Veuve Clicquot (16 December 1777 - 29 July 1866), known as the Grand Dame of Champagne. Artist: Léon Cogniet Perhaps it was an ambitious projects to try and write a biography, even if it is fictional, around someone who was not publicly known during her lifetime. There was a reason for that, though. Her father, Ponce Jean Nicolas Philippe Ponsardin (from 1813, Baron Ponsardin), a textile manufacturer and politician, was a staunch royalist and industrialist, and he quickly had to sing a new tune when the angry hordes entered the cities and destroyed the property and lives of the aristocracy and their collaborators during the French Revolution. He became a Jacobin revolutionary himself. Despite his change of sides, the less anyone knew about his family, the safer they were. His daughters were kept a secret, while he adapted his politics to the republican mantra in an effort to safe his fortune and family. He succeeded. But there was another reason why historians did not deem it necessary or important, to document Veuve Clicquot's life: Barbe-Nicole and her sister had learned from the time the were small girls studying catechism in their convent school that the only women with public reputations were prostitutes or queens. Even the two most famous women of Barbe-Nicole's day'Marie Antoinette and Joséphine Bonaparte'were famous only because of their choice of husbands. It is probably not a coincidence that the public still thought of them both as whores. Any person resembling wealth or nobility stood a chance of being decapitated. Musing on the invisibility of women like Barbe-Nicole and her sister, Clémentine, the novelist Virginia Woolf wrote simply, "Anonymity runs in their blood." Yet, a formidable woman, the mother of champagne'which was originally just called vin mousseux'sparkling wine'deserves a little acknowledgment as one of the most important female entrepreneurs in modern history. Her nineteenth-century competitors at the time included Jean-Rémy Moët and his son-in-law Pierre-Gabriel Chandon (Does Moët et Chandon ring a bell?), Jules Mumm, Louis Roederer, Charles Heidsieck and Her grandmother's family, the pioneering Ruinarts. Born in a wealthy well-connected family, Veuve Clicquout had the angels and gods on her side for various reasons. First off, she was born in a palatial mansions, facing 'rue Cérès, one of the city's main boulevards, with a symmetrical facade of endless airy windows. The street was named after the Roman goddess of bountiful harvests' Secondly, at the age of 21 she married another industrialist's son. François Clicquot was the son of a wealthy textile millionaire and wine maker. Their dowries coming from both families made the two young people instant millionaires at the signing of the marriage license. The marriage only lasted six years when her husband passed away from typhoid fever. She became a widow at the age of 27. Building a non-fictional biography, throwing in terms such as 'imagine's', 'perhaps'es, 'it would not have come as a surprise', 'I expect's', 'hazard some guesses', 'likely's, 'probably's''surely's, 'must have's and another few, often several times per page, can become like scratching ... screeeeeeeching ... chalk on a black board. However, the author used a wide variety of resources, through meticulous research to patch together the life of a remarkable woman. I thought it was a brilliant idea. If she presented the story as a fictional biography, removed the speculative terms, added a strong story line, colorful characters, historical details and suspense, it could have worked splendidly. Nevertheless, the history provided in the book, was riveting and fascinating. The challenges were numerous and diverse. Political upheavals, wars, famines, unraveling economies, natural disasters, lack of scientific knowledge, problems with glass production, and fate. All these elements were entertaining and highly informative. I certainly learnt a lot and enjoyed doing so through this book. Veuve Clicquot had a few cards up her sleeve in saving her company, initially known as Veuve Clicquout Fourneaux. She never gave up. Never compromised. Not even when the Russians tried to raid and destroy her cellars; and not even when the British, in their effort to isolate France, closed all harbors from Amsterdam to the North Sea, destroying all possibilities of wine exports. She changed every single draw-back into a resounding come-back. Nothing kept her down. She changed her company name to Veuve Clicquout Ponsardin and Company and eventually became one of the most wealthiest women in Europe, even in today's standards. She transformed a fledgling family wine trade, a small well-funded, but struggling family wine brokerage, into one of the great champagne houses of the world. But it did not come quick or easy. Bankruptcy hammered on her door a few times, thanks to Napoleon, which changed her 14-hour workaholic days into overdrive. Hardheaded and unstoppable. Courage by the barrel load. Another good-luck charm was the Napoleonic Code, which confined married women to a reproductive life, adorning their lavish, opulent homes. Widows, however, had the same rights and mobility as men in all walks of life. Veuve Barbe-Nicole Clicquot was allowed to follow in the commercial tradition of both families, embracing industry and entrepreneurial traditions. That was the law! She grabbed her opportunities and ran with it. However, social mores and values changed again, forcing women back into the kitchens, barefoot and pregnant, yet Barbe-Nicole Clicquout forged ahead, establishing one of the first versions of corporate identities in the world. Chardonnay was the grape of the fizzy fantasy. Adding a scoop of sugar and brandy to it, gave it a boisterous bubble. Although the Russians like it toxic sweet, the rest of the royal establishments demanded a more refined, dignified product. For many decades it was the nectar of the most fortunate. Today, champagne is ranked from driest to sweetest in categories that progress from: brut nature (naturally strong), extra brut (extra strong), and brut (strong) on the dry end and then'despite the hopelessly misleading names'on into the categories of: sec (dry), extra sec(extra dry), demi sec (half dry), and doux (gentle) on the sweeter end. Essentially, brut is dry and sec is sweet. Our demi sec'one of the sweeter champagnes on the market'has up to twenty grams of sugar per bottle. In wine-making, experts talk of the indefinable essence of terroir, the gift that the land gives to the grape and that creates the potential range of tastes and aromas it can express. Well, for the social climbers, this concept should become a new buzz word, if it isn't one already. Terroir is just as meaningful in vegetable production through thousands of years. Soil high in minerals, produces healthier vegetables and fruits. That's an ancient secret. The fruit and veg farmers just did not label their produce with the elitist etiquette terroir. Well, the champagne-fundis was first, so good for them. I recently listened to a radio talk show in which terroir was the new concept in South African wine production. I laughed every time the poor presenter struggled to pronounce the word. The word was clearly still a scary possibility in her world, but it did have her in delightful shudders to test it on an unsuspecting South African public. I LOVED this non-fictional, speculative biography. It read like a suspenseful adventure tale. Entertaining, informative, exciting - most of the time. Catching up on history was the biggest thrill. So, this is the story of champagne and how a woman beat the odds and put romance back in wine. She made it affordable to everyone, branded and trademarked it, and made celebrations what it is today--a kissing of the stars when the cork pops up and roams the skies.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-19 00:00:00 Ryan Kron Thin. Based largely on speculation, this book would have made a much better historical novel than biography. Little actual information is known about Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, so Mazzeo filled in based upon the known history of France (and the rest of Europe) in the 1800s. The details about the history of the wine industry made up most of the solid information and were interesting, but the book was supposed to be about more than that--Ponsardin and the rise of Veuve Clicquot. Additionally, for coming in at less than 200 pages, there is a lot of repetitive information throughout, and the notes are odd--there are millions of them but no footnotes or endnotes to reference readers to the correct information.