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