Louis Bohne born in Mannheim, Germany, was the sales agent for Veuve Clicquot

Veuve Clicquot

Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin is both a champagne house in Reims, France, and a brand of premium champagne. Founded in 1772 by Philippe Clicquot-Muiron, Veuve Clicquot played an important role in establishing champagne as a favored drink of haute bourgeoisie and nobility throughout Europe...

 whose exploits during the French invasion of Russia and subsequent fall of Napoleon

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

 substantially increased the popularity of Champagne in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 during the 19th century.

Early work for the Clicquots

Louis Bohne first met Mme. Clicquot's husband, François Clicquot, in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 and began working for the Champagne house by peddling orders in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Due to the saturation of many houses competing for the Champagne market there, Bohne was soon transferred to the relatively untapped market of Russia, Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

 and Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. Once there, he was able to successfully integrate himself into the Russian Court and became close personal friends with the Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

 Alexander I

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

 and Czarina Elisabeth Alexeievna, which greatly elevated the esteem of Clicquot Champagne within Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

Napoleonic War with Russia

In the summer of 1812, following Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the tsar issued a decree banning the import of French wines in bottles. This was a deliberate affront to Napoleon's patronage of Champagne since the only feasible way to transport the sparkling wine

Sparkling wine

Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it making it fizzy. The carbon dioxide may result from natural fermentation, either in a bottle, as with the méthode champenoise, in a large tank designed to withstand the pressures involved , or as a result of carbon dioxide...

 was in the bottles as storage in barrel

Barrel

A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of vertical wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. A small barrel is called a keg.For example, a...

s would cause the wine to lose all effervescence

Carbonation

Carbonation is the process of dissolving carbon dioxide in water. The process usually involves carbon dioxide under high pressure. When the pressure is reduced, the carbon dioxide is released from the solution as small bubbles, which cause the solution to "fizz." This effect is seen in carbonated...

. In an attempt to circumvent the ban, Bohne registered Veuve Clicquot as a coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 merchant and began smuggling in small quantities of bottles of champagne in barrels of coffee beans.

Following the Prussian occupation of Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

, Louis Bohne and Barbe-Nicole Clicquot worked out a scheme to smuggle a large quantity of Veuve Clicquot's 1811 vintage Cuvée de la Comète. While the Widow (Veuve in French) Clicquot distracted the stationed soldiers by opening up her cellars with all the champagne they could drink, Bohne coordinated the loading of a Dutch merchant vessel docked at Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 with more than ten thousand bottles. Upon arrival in Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

, Bohne's shipment was met with eager enthusiasm by the Russian elite, with even the tsar himself making a visit. Soon the ban was lifted and a second shipment of this famous wine was quickly sent to Saint Petersburg. The first-to-market success of this venture firmly established Veuve Clicquot's stature as Russia became the second largest consumer of Champagne in the world.