This is a solid biography that adequately depicts the time that Barbe-Nicole lived, as well as, the many trials and tribulations she had to undergo to build her company into one of the world's largest producers of champagne. There are not vast amounts of resource material on this remarkable woman but the author still manages to tell a fascinating story. There is much tradecraft contained within the pages concerning the production of champagne. For those readers interested in wine- and there are many- this book will prove to be a fascinating read and well recommended.

I'm giving this book a three star rating, despite the fact that I couldn't finish it, simply because the subject matter is so interesting and worthwhile. Aside from the fact that this is one of those rare books about a real-life businesswoman from centuries past, the history of champagne and of wine making and sales, in general, is extremely interesting. It's just too bad that the author couldn't decide whether she was writing history or a historical novel.

Great popular historians, like Barbara Tuchman and Allison Weir, can get away with hypothetical satements (e.g., so-and-so would have seen a sweeping view of the Seine from her second story window), because they have a good idea when such statements are likely to be accurate and unlikely to undermine the author's credibility (e.g., they're just filling in background color). But the author of The Widow Cliquot uses such hypothesis on a regular basis to set forth the main facts of the story and after a while it grows tiresome and undercuts the reader's belief in the history presented.

Perhaps someday I'll get around to finishing this book and learning how the Widow Cliquot survived the death of her husband and the errors in judgment he'd made while alive to create an enduring business that has far outlasted her lifetime. Then again, with so many well-written histories from which to choose, I'll probably just move on to one with better writing and more convincing historical accuracy.

Other reviewers had been disappointed with this book, but I was so interested in the subject that I bought it anyway. It wasn't bad enough for me to regret it, but it could have been much better. She seemed to have done her research, only to discover that too much of the desired information had been lost, or never existed as a paper trail or memory. She didn't have enough to proceed with a non-fiction book, but she went ahead with it. It was tiresome reading the constant disclaimers and apologies for guessing, assuming and extrapolating. In my opinion, she should have let the narrative flow with a historical novel, perhaps with a preface outling her research and guiding the reader as to what was fact and what was fiction.