CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE: the Frenchman who Taught Americans to Love Champagne
Potomac Books, 2021
This is the story of a dashing young Frenchman, Charles Heidsieck, who introduced Americans to champagne in the mid-19th century and became famously known as Champagne Charlie. Ignoring critics who warned that America was a dangerous place to do business and "filled with wild Indians," Heidsieck considered it "the land of opportunity," and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Those dreams, however, became a nightmare when the Civil War erupted. He was thrown into prison and nearly executed after being accused of being a spy for the Confederacy.
Only after the Lincoln Administration intervened was Heidsieck's life saved, but his champagne business had gone bankrupt and was virtually dead. How that business was resurrected to become one of the great champagne houses of today is the climax of this book, one explained for the first time thanks to unpublished letters and other documents Heidsieck's descendants agreed to share with us from family archives.
Cover of Champagne Charlie” sheet music. Author’s collection.
Denver, CO around 1862, where Heidsieck inherited nearly half of the city. Courtesy of History Colorado
Reviews:
"A high-spirited romp through the world of French champagne and antebellum America. Don and Petie Kladstrup are storytellers with a keen eye for a good yarn and with an even keener appreciation of the rich history of the world's favorite beverage."—Tilar J. Mazzeo, author of The Widow Cliquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
"Like an effervescent de Tocqueville, Heidsieck himself was a keen observer of all things American. Champagne Charlie is U.S. history paired with a primer on champagne. We learn that George Washington employed a wine advisor, that America was once lousy with counterfeit champagne, and that, for a while, cotton was an acceptable currency for purchasing bubbly. Deeply researched, elegantly written, Champagne Charlie goes down as smooth as a glass of Heidsiek's finest. Here is a book worth savoring – and celebrating."—Eric Weiner, author of the New York Times best-seller The Geography of Bliss
"Champagne Charlie is a fascinating, fast-moving narrative of Heidsieck's remarkable story and the tumultuous times in which he lived."—Lesley J. Gordon, Civil War historian and Charles G. Summersell, Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama
"From raging success to humiliating scandal, from creating international thirst to losing all in the jaws of a harrowing Civil War, Champagne Charlie is a true original -- and with effervescent prose and connoisseurs' savvy, our guides don't miss a moment. As much a history of the maturation of American taste as of self-promoting European sophistication, this entertaining story will have you gently popping a cork in no time! Cheers!" — Joseph Spellman, named the world's best sommelier in French Wine and Spirits competition, 1997
First ball of the season in New York, which Heidsieck attended, January, 1860. Courtesy of Champagne Charles Heidsieck.
The United States was a young country… , and considered culturally unrefined. At the end of the day it was hard to picture a cowboy just off the trail with mud and straw clinging to his boots, bellying up to the bar and saying “A glass of champagne, please.”
—Champagne Charlie: the Frenchman who Taught Americans to Love Champagne