**Carrie and I are taking a much needed holiday break. We will be back in Mid-January with all new episodes.

Until then, we have some replay episodes.

New Year’s Eve is just a few days away and often we think of toasting with a glass of sparkly at the stroke of midnight. Historical fiction writer Rebecca Rosenberg’s love of wine and sparkling wine in particular took her on travels to France to visit the great wine houses. And one of the things she discovered was the huge influence women had on the wine and sparkling wine industry. That inspired her to write Champagne Widows, a novel about Madame Clicquot, France’s first lady of wine from Napoleon’s time. In fact you may be toasting in 2023 with a glass of Clicquot wine as it is still one of the premier sparkling wines today. Rebecca will continue the series this coming March with the story of Madame Pommery who lived in the 1860s but changed the way we think of champagne today.

Cheers everyone!

Part of what drew us to this week’s author, Rebecca Rosenberg, was the cool cover of her historical fiction novel, Champagne Widows. But as we read the book, we realized it was a pretty fascinating story of a young widow, Madame Clicquot, who essentially revolutionized champagne production in France during the Napoleonic years.

Rebecaa has written two other historical fiction novels but Champagne Widows is the first in a series about the trailblazing women of wine in France in the 19th century. As a champagne historian, Rebecca decided these stories needed to be told. She gave us a lot of the background on champagne and Madame Clicquot when we spoke to her. And reading Rebecca’s book right around New Year’s gave Amy all the excuse she needed to splurge on a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne and share it with me to toast in 2022.

Book mentioned in this episode:

1- Champagne Widows by Rebecca Rosenberg

Shows/movies mentioned--

You can find Rebecca Rosenberg at her website www.rebecca-rosenberg.com.

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