Making Wine History

One of my favorite things about being on vacation is having more time than usual to read. I read quite a lot on my week off recently, one of the books being The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by Tilar J. Mazzeo. I read it on the plane and found it to be a very interesting story about a woman with a strong business sense for her time who works hard to earn a living in 19th century France after her husband suddenly passed away. She was lucky to be encouraged by both her father and father-in-law as she worked to make champagne accessible to the middle class.

Upon our arrival at our hotel in the Rhine Valley we were offered a glass of champagne during check-in, which only made me appreciate the Widow Clicquot even more, right? (Our hotel is also a winery, so everything they serve there is their own.) A couple days later at the Rheingauer Weinmuseum Bromserburg in Rudesheim, we learned a little about the region's 1,000-year wine producing history, and part of that centered around the sparkling wine produced in the Rhine Valley.

Upon returning to the States, I did investigate Clicquot's famous champagne. At $40 a bottle it's out of my price range, but it was fun to learn about all the effort she put into her work.

Cheers!