The Mindset of The Widow Clicquot (part two)

Deep Dive N°4, Part 1

Author

LaToya Allen
August 16, 2025

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Let’s get into it.

France, early 1800s

Barbe–Nicole and her soon-to-be-dead husband, François, did not make the best wine in France.  They didn’t make wine at all; they were small-time local wine distributors who also owned a textile company.

And neither business was doing well.

François, being an incredibly ambitious man, wanted to go all in on the wine business. The first step of his plan: stop being a local distributor and start being an international one.

And to that I say 🚩🚩🚩

What do you mean you have two failing businesses, and you’re just gonna start another one ?!?

Now, we have to give him a bit of a break. It was the early 1800s, and the first business school hadn't been invented yet.  If you couldn’t learn from someone who’d run a successful business, your only choice was to learn through failure.

And this is what I find so interesting about the mindset of Barbe–Nicole; while her husband was failing, she was incredibly intentional about learning everything she could about his failures. 

And François certainly gave her a lot to learn from. A partial list: 

  1. He brought on a business partner, Louis, a friend he met on the road. Louis had about the same amount of experience as he did. Between the two, there was no expert.

  2. They had no connections. Their biggest competitor, Jean-Remy Moet, was best friends with Napoleon. And Napoleon just happened to be the ruler of France. So, everybody who was anybody wanted to drink Moet. 

  3. They traveled to Britain to sell their sparkling wine. British people wanted nothing to do with sparkling wine; they preferred red wine.

Instead of learning from those mistakes and figuring out how to improve them within his business, François decided to start another business.  He no longer wanted to be a distributor; he wanted to become a winemaker. But winemaking is a craft that was, back then, passed on through generations of families. So, there was a lot of trial and error, and more failure.

Unfortunately, died a mysterious death in 1805, before he could find the success he was looking for.

And Barbe-Nicole, who was only 26 years old, became a widow and a single mother. 

Now, between the tragedy of her husband dying, having to figure out how to raise a child alone, and the fact that it’s the 1800s and she had no rights, one would expect The Widow to just lie back and take it easy. 

And yet her priority was taking over the family business.

There was just one problem: she had to ask her father-in-law for permission to do it.

See you next week for part 3,

LaToya

References && Further Reading

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