Episode 17: Champagne Problems
Bonne année tout le monde! Happy New Year everyone! Raise a glass of your favorite bubbly beverage for the new year! Our second holiday episode is a recent Netflix Original Movie: Champagne Problems!
The film premiered this past December and stars Minka Kelly, Tom Wozniczka, Sean Amsing, Flula Borg, Astrid Whettnall, and Thibault de Montalembert. Sydney (Minka Kelly) travels to Paris during the holidays prior to acquire a champagne vineyard. When she arrives, she meets Henri (Tom Wozniczka) in a bookstore in Paris and finds out the next day that he is the son of the owner of the vineyard with whom she is meeting.
In this episode we talk about the history of Champagne [https://thechampagnecompany.com/blog/history-of-champagne.html], both the region [https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/champagne-and-its-history] and the wine, and its evolution over the centuries. The industry we know today is quite matriarchal [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-widow-who-created-the-champagne-industry-180947570/], including the well-known Veuve Clicquot. [https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230301-the-little-known-history-of-champagne]
We mention a book about Veuve Clicquot: The Widow Clicquot from HarperCollins [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-widow-clicquot-tilar-j-mazzeo?variant=32122931839010]. We talk about the festival held in the region each year - Habits de Lumière [https://habitsdelumiere.epernay.fr/en] - that has scenes featured in the film.
If you’ve ever taken a Duolingo course, you may recognize the chimes! One of the things we enjoyed in this film was how much French is spoken! Caitie took French in college and spoke a little French in this episode!
In the movie, Sydney and her sister say to encourage themselves that they are a Kelly Clarkson song - so we decided to open the episode talking about what Kelly Clarkson song we would be! Comment below - what Kelly Clarkson song would you be or what’s your favorite Kelly Clarkson song?
We also have a couple references to our previous episode for The Holiday about Hans Gruber in Die Hard and whether Gaston from Beauty & the Beast was the villain. After the episode, leave a comment with your thoughts!
Champagne Problems [https://www.netflix.com/title/81628146] is available for streaming on Netflix. Let us know what you think of the movie and this episode!
We also mention holiday markets and specifically the Christmas Village in Philadelphia [https://www.philachristmas.com/index.html] that is held each year and was open at the time of this recording. Caitie mentioned there was a windmill at the market that was new to the market this year. As part of some follow-up research, we wanted to offer a clarification, and it’s technically called a Christmas Pyramid.
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Thank you to Shop Broken Spine [https://shopbrokenspine.com/] in Tinker & Trade [https://tinkerandtradeco.com] for sponsoring this episode!
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