Widow Clicquot | Trailer 1 - video Dailymotion

The formidable Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot flouts convention and turns the family Champagne business into a global success.

Transcript

00:01Welcome to the vineyards of Versailles.

00:05The most beautiful in all of Champagne.

00:09My darling, I think we might have found the secret to perfect happiness.

00:15I am hopelessly unequivocally yours.

00:22Francois willed the vines to me because he knew I would never sell.

00:26I will be continuing to care for them myself.

00:28Wine is a very difficult vocation, my dear. You underestimate what it will require of you.

00:32I know what it requires. I've been in the fields for years.

00:35You have one chance. One.

00:39These fields do not need replanting or starting over again.

00:42I disagree. They need to struggle to survive.

00:48I want our Champagne to have structure. Depth.

00:53I do admire you trying to run things as you want, as a woman would.

00:59We lose these first shoots to frost, we lose the harvest.

01:02No one can force me.

01:05A woman is not capable of running this vineyard.

01:09When I have proceeds, I will send them to you.

01:12A woman is forbidden to run a business under the law.

01:14Her vineyard should be placed in the hands of an experienced executor.

01:18Is this the plan all along?

01:20No, madame. It never occurred to them you would succeed.

01:24So many obstacles ahead. So much at stake.

01:27But there is hope, however unpredictable.

01:32Your instincts have always been so good.

01:34Why won't you listen to yourself now?

01:36I don't want to.

01:40No one can sell abroad due to Napoleon's embargoes against his enemies.

01:44I want to stay ahead of him.

01:45Of Napoleon? So you're a criminal at heart?

01:48So you're a criminal at heart?

01:51Human beings are compelled to create, to lay down our lives however best we can.

01:59It is so that we might uncover the secrets of ourselves.

02:04And that with any luck, one hundred years from now,

02:08someone will know that we were here.