champagne charlie the frenchman who taught americans to love champagne

And upon returning to France, he faced bankruptcy because of his sales agent’s financial misappropriation.

Seven years later, the US was the world’s biggest market for champagne, and the dandified Heidsieck was its most popular seller.īut there are controversies in the story, too: in 1860, Heidsieck introduced his champagne to the South amid rising social and political tensions. He hired a sales agent, and business boomed. He knew his entrepreneurial flair and adventurism would guarantee success where other champagne houses had failed. Heidsieck was born into one of the greatest champagne dynasties in France, but he aspired to dominate the American champagne market. These revealing, observational archives blend with the Kladstrups’ astute, detailed depictions of European history, the pulse of American life in the mid-nineteenth century, and champagne’s significant place in human history. Yearning to tell Heidsieck’s remarkable story in more detail, the Kladstrups contacted Heidsieck’s associates and received hundreds of letters and documents. The Kladstrups-American journalists who reside in France-learned about Heidsieck while working on Champagne, in which Heidsieck was afford just six pages, due to a dearth of biographical sources.

The Frenchman Who Taught Americans to Love Champagneĭon and Petie Kladstrup’s Champagne Charlie is the enjoyable biography of Charles Heidsieck, a dazzling, daring, and adroit French champagne merchant who risked his life and limbs to sell his esteemed bubbly to Americans in the mid-nineteenth century.

Champagne charlie the frenchman who taught americans to love champagne