With Mother’s Day coming up, I think of the great story of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Many people are familiar with their iconic orange label but the story of Veuve Clicquot shows the resilience of a great mother.
Veuve means widow in French. The champagne is named after its original owner, Madam Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. In the late 18th century, her husband died when she was 27 years old, leaving her with his business and six-year-old daughter. At that time, the wine trade was male-dominated so it was incredibly brave and difficult for a young, inexperienced widowed mother to run a business let alone make it thrive.
Undaunted, she developed a technique that improved champagne called riddling. Before the invention of this technique, champagne was cloudy because the yeast used in the fermentation process stayed in the bottle. Therefore, Veuve Clicquot decided to place bottles upside down and regularly flip them so the dead yeast would all gather near the cork (riddling) resulting in the cloudiness removed from the champagne.
She dared to be different and is credited with several wine-making innovations. Veuve Clicquot was the first champagne house to make vintage champagne and the first to blend rose champagne. She was also a marketing genius. Most champagnes in her times were very sweet, but her champagne was relatively dry in style to distinguish her champagne from the sweeter ones and she created an orange label so her bottles would stand out.
She was so instrumental in the worldwide success of champagne that she was nicknamed La Grande Dame, which is now the name of their flagship wine. BC Liquor Stores carried their non-vintage ($82.99) and rose ($101.99) champagnes, but for a real splurge for Mother’s Day, try their La Grande Dame 2015.
It is priced at $264.99 but represents the best that this champagne house has to offer. It is a blend of 90-per-cent Pinot Noir and 10-per-cent Chardonnay. You will get floral aromas along with Granny Smith apple and blackberry flavours, a minerally, ginger aftertaste and great underlying acidity.
For my full review of this champagne, watch here.
For some more affordable choices:
As Malbec World Day just passed, one of my favourite value Argentinean Malbecs is the Terrazas de los Andes 2021 Malbec Riserva. The winery is a high-altitude Malbec specialist that uses grapes sourced from eight vineyards to produce this wine.
You will taste lots of violet aromas along with dark fruits, smoke with oak and spice on the palate. Well-priced at $27.26 and available at Legacy Wine Merchants.
It is really difficult to find an affordable American Chardonnay that is oaky and buttery without being overbearing. Cambria Estate’s 2021 Chardonnay Katherine’s Vineyard fits the bill. Cambria is a pioneer in the wine-making region of the Santa Rita Hills in California and this wine represents their flagship Chardonnay produced from grapes from a single vineyard.
You will get a moderately oaky and buttery wine with stone fruit and citrus elements. Reduced this month at BC Liquor Stores from $38.99 to $35.99
For all the mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day and until next time, happy drinking
Tony Kwan is a Richmond News columnist. Lawyer by day, and a food and wine lover by night. Kwan is an epicurean who writes about wine, food and enjoying all that life has to offer.
