Veuve Clicquot is named for a widow who ran a champagne house at a time when women were kept out of business. Her firsts are still what the cellar tour shows you. If a veuve clicquot france tour is on your list, this is the story you will hear underground, from the house's own history.
Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin was the daughter of a textile manufacturer in Reims. She married François Clicquot, whose father Philippe had founded the family's wine business in 1772. When François died in 1805, the house says, it took her only a few weeks to decide.
She took the company over herself. The house calls her one of the first businesswomen of modern times, and "veuve" is simply French for widow. Her peers came to call her "la grande dame of Champagne", and the house still uses the name.
What she built rests on three firsts the house claims for her: the first recorded vintage champagne, the riddling table and the first blended rosé. You meet all three in the cellars.
The dates below are the house's own, from its history page. They are the milestones a house guide usually walks you through.
The house's cellar tours start at EUR 36, and the day tours put the ticket in the fare with a second producer and the drive.
In 1810 Madame Clicquot made the first recorded vintage champagne in the region: a wine from a single year's harvest. The next year gave her the one she became famous for. The 1811 harvest was so good that people credited the comet seen over the region, and the wine became the Comet vintage.
The house still makes a vintage only in good years. Its tasting committee decides, and a vintage then rests at least five years in the chalk.
Early champagne was cloudy with dead yeast. In 1816 Madame Clicquot devised the first riddling table to clear it. Bottles were tipped neck down, a little further each day, and turned by hand, so the sediment slid down onto the cork.
Every other house took up the method, and the rack you see in the cellars today descends from it. The house still turns La Grande Dame and its large formats by hand.
Madame Clicquot did not invent rosé champagne, and the house does not claim she did. Rosé already existed, coloured with a preparation made from elderberries. What she did in 1818 was blend red wine from her Bouzy vineyards into her champagne. That was the first rosé d'assemblage, the blended rosé.
The house's one-hour rosé cellar tour, at EUR 60, is built around the method. It is the visit to book if rosé is what you drink at home.
A yellow label was an odd colour for a bottle at the time. The house registered its "V. Clicquot P. Werlé" Yellow Label trademark on 12 February 1877, and customers soon asked for the bottle by its colour.
Today the Brut Yellow Label is the house's signature wine. It is blended from about fifty crus, with 25 to 50% reserve wine, and rests at least 30 months. The cheapest cellar tour, at EUR 36, ends with a glass of it.
For its 200th anniversary in 1972, the house launched La Grande Dame, a prestige vintage cuvée named after Madame Clicquot's nickname. It rests at least seven years in the chalk. The same year the house created a business award for women, now called Bold by Veuve Clicquot.
The house's longest cellar tour, four hours at EUR 260, is built around this wine. If you want the full story in one sitting, that is the visit to book.
Two episodes explain names you will meet on the day.
The house has had only 11 cellar masters in its history. The current one is Didier Mariotti, who leads the tasting committee that builds each year's blends. Its motto is Madame Clicquot's own: "Only one quality, the finest."
You can visit the house on your own, from EUR 36, or with a tour that adds the drive and a second producer. Compare the ways to go on the visitor guide.
A chauffeur collects you in Paris at 7:30 am for Moët & Chandon and this house, each at the tasting level you pick, with Hautvillers and the cathedral between. Back at about 8 pm.
From $802 per person
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Two houses whose cellars are chalk pits in Reims: your chauffeur takes you from Paris to both cellar tours, the cathedral and free time in the city.
From $793 per person
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Your own guide from a Reims hotel at 9 am: the house's cellars, the Avenue de Champagne, Hautvillers, lunch and a second producer, nine tastings in all. Non-refundable once booked.
From $838 per person
Check AvailabilityEvery date and figure here comes from the house's own history and vine-to-wine pages, and Reims Tourisme's page on the house confirms the early dates. The UNESCO date comes from UNESCO. The house's page gives two different figures for Madame Clicquot's age in 1805, so we print neither.
Next: go down into the cellars, see the vineyards, or compare every tour on Veuve Clicquot Tours.