Madame Clicquot

Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin was born in Reims in 1777, the daughter of a wealthy textile manufacturer, and married François Clicquot, whose family ran a modest wine business, in 1798. Seven years later he died suddenly, leaving her with a small daughter, a firm that was not doing well, and a father-in-law who intended to wind it up.

At 27, in a France where a married woman could not open a bank account without permission, she persuaded him to let her take charge, with his money as backing. The first years were grim. The Napoleonic wars closed most of her export markets, and the firm nearly went under. She kept going by working the trade herself, learning blending and the vineyards, and by holding out for the moment the fighting stopped.

That moment came in 1814. With the British blockade lifting, she smuggled a shipment of her 1811 vintage to Russia ahead of every competitor, and the court in St Petersburg took to it so enthusiastically that the name Veuve Clicquot, "Widow Clicquot", became a byword for luxury. Around 1816 she and her cellar master devised the riddling table, a slanted board with holes in which bottles were turned a little each day so the sediment collected in the neck and could be removed. Champagne that had been cloudy became crystal clear, and the method is still used.

She ran the house for almost sixty years, building vineyards, cellars and a business that outlived her by a long way. She died in 1866 at 89, one of the first women to lead an international company.