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 was in the bottles as storage in barrels would cause the wine to lose all effervescence. In an attempt to circumvent the ban, Bohne registered Veuve Clicquot as a coffee merchant and began smuggling in small quantities of bottles of champagne in barrels of coffee beans.