The Literary Cellar: Champagne Widows

Guess we're starting a book club?

With all the Internet conversation about lit girls and thought daughters, I guess it was inevitable that we get into some seriously nerdy wine reads over here at Brunello Bombshell.

Me and my beloved wine books - the collection never stops growing!

If you’ve seen the movie SOMM, you’ll know that hardly a day goes by when a sommelier throws their nose into a book or a deck of flashcards or a map. One of the things I love most about wine as a profession is that it allows me the opportunity to research to my heart’s content - because wine is an ever-evolving consumable product, it’s literally impossible to know everything. We few, we quixotic few attempt to learn everything we can because all that information about soil types and winemakers and world wars tell a story about what’s in the bottle. And at the end of the day? We care about wine because of the stories it tells, from the making of the product to the restaurant or store it’s sold in, to the memory that’s created when the wine is consumed. 

So it seems only natural for your favorite sommelier to give you the lowdown on some favorite books. As part of the rotating schedule of Tuesday posts just for paid subscribers, I’ll write some of my thoughts on whatever wine-related read I’m enjoying once a month. If you’re interested in starting a Substack Chat for an online book club, I’d love to hear your thoughts, too! 

Also, this is proof that

Beth Lisogorsky

has ESPN or something. Click the Note down below for a preview of my next read!

To celebrate the arrival of the Widow Clicquot movie in theaters, I wanted to kick off The Literary Cellar by taking a look at the life of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin in a novel.

Champagne Widows by Rebecca Rosenberg (Photo Credit: Bookly Matters)

Champagne Widows is a novel by Rebecca Rosenberg, and it is the first in a series about the boundary-breaking widows of the French Revolution who came to take ownership of their late husbands’ vineyards and revolutionize the craft of Champagne. Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin was truly the first such widow; at the age of 27, she found herself widowed with a 6-year-old daughter when she inherited her husband’s wine business. Without any formal business training, but years of hands-on experience in the vineyard and a well-trained sense of smell, Veuve Clicquot went on to defy Napoleonic rule and create the first name brand Champagne.