Rating: 
Summary: Check it out at your local library...
Review: A light, easy read. Not much depth or breadth. Buy it used or check it out at the library. You'll finish reading it in two evenings.
Rating: 
Summary: Wine and War
Review: Amazing. While France, for the most part, collaborates with the Nazis and sentences its Jewish population to certain death, the French are concerned with WINE. Any way you look at it...there is something wrong with this picture.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable reading; wanted a bit more
Review: As an American in France, one of my areas of interest is the similarities and differences between our peoples and cultures. And both wine and war certainly set us apart. Everyone realizes wine is a significant part of the French culture, though few understand why. And we Americans are fortunate to have (almost) always been victorious in war. It's very difficult to appreciate each other's points of view on war when the French have been invaded on their home turf so many times. Not us.So I found this book provided just a bit more insight into both areas. Helped to lift the fog a bit about the French. While you'll learn a little about wine from this book, it doesn't really scratch the surface in that regard, though I doubt it intended to. (If you want to do that, go read the DK guidebook 'French Wines: The Essential Guide to the Wines and Wine Growing Regions of France.) But I thought the Kladstrup's did a good job providing some insights into the role wine played - and still does - in the French culture. This is not so much a book about Paris and city life as the rest of France. It's about an agricultural industry's fight to survive during the suicidal years of Europe in the last century. Several of the other reviewers have done a good job describing the books contents. I'll just end by saying I would have preferred a more in-depth treatment of the French - German relationships. But given the sensitive nature of talking to the few remaining survivors and families about what still is a certainly painful memory for the French, I think Don and Petie Kladstrup did a good job in producing a pleasant read on a somewhat unique topic. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the glass of French wine I poured myself while sitting down to write this review. Recommended (both the book and my wine!)
Rating: 
Summary: Superficial research.
Review: As compared to "The Algeria Hotel", which covers the same period, this book is almost naive in its coverage of WW2, the Resistance and the relation the French had with the Germans.
The purpose of the book is to demonstrate that by hiding their wine, the French were "resisting". This is as false as the claims in the years after WW2 that the French resistance, the heroic Maquis, had defeated the German occupation. The American army defeated the Germans and liberated France. And the overwhelming majority of the French "collaborated", actively or passively with the Germans. The reason the French winegrowers hid their wine was of pure economics, and egotistical business. (No one is more avaricious than the French peasants.) I'm not sure I blame them for preserving their estates. But to claim this was done for patriotic reasons is disingenuous, extremely disingenuous. One of the features of French who try to hide their "collaboration" is to claim that they "saved a Jew". Even the apologists for Petain and Laval will tell you that their goal was to save the "French Jews", but not the refugee Jews who were in Vichy France. Which is completely false. As false as the legend that all French fought in the Resistance. Even when they have medals, the medals of the Liberation. Any doubts? How about Papon, who claimed that he was just a bureaucrat signing papers to send Jews and French patriots to concentration camps.
The Kladstrups have swallowed, hook, line and sinker the lies of the French.
Rating:
Summary: thin analysis clouded by romanticism
Review: Despite a long bibliography at the back of the book, the book suffers from a lack insightful analysis and sharp writing. Although it is fun to hear about the wine (I actually have a greater interest in French wine as a result of reading the book) the book glosses over the historical complexities. As far as a history book goes, it provides very little. Everyone comes out a winner. The Kladstrups seem hesitant to criticize anyone whom they actually name, covering potential sins of collaboration or weakness with elaborate descriptions of wine, dinners, and romantic portrayals of life in the vinyard. They seem as reluctant to delve into things as the French did after the war. The chapter on the collaborator who made millions in wine deals with the Germans, "Uncle Louis," remains uncritical of such profiteering. It is as though most of the writing took place after a long meal with several glasses of wine. A disappointing read.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating read--but I wanted a bit more.
Review: Having traveled throughout many of the areas covered by the Kladstrups in this remarkable book, I was captured by the not-often told history of the vineyards during World War II. While certainly not expecting a weighty academic tome about the French-German parley over the wine business, I certainly enhanced my appetite to learn more about the actual mechanics of the murky business dealings between the German occupiers (many of whom were pre-war acquaintances of the vintners themselves) and the French vintners.
The book is an easy read; and while history has obfuscated the difference between those in the French Resistance, and those who 50 years ex post facto claim to have been part of the Resistance, I believe the Kladstrups made an honest effort to provide a semblance of balance.
But for those of us who love French wine, the stories of how precious stores of vintage wines were hidden from the Nazis are truly remarkable. I would have loved to have seen a couple of more chapters towards the end of the book, demonstrating how the vineyards got back on their feet, and more importantly, how the pre-war German-French relationships were reestablished.
If you are looking for a good summertime read, this book is for you. A very casual and enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Wines of France
Review: I did indeed enjoy the book "Wine and War". It was a spececial book about an extra ordinary place. I now live in Germany and work there for the Defence Department . A close friend of mine has a summer home in the Loire region of France and so this book really was set in some familiar territory. If a reader loves French wines, as I do, and has an interest in World War II, then this book is a must. If you have traveled in the wine regions of France you'll love it. ENJOY
Rating:
Summary: Small topic stretched too far
Review: I enjoyed this book, but...The topic struck me as more suited for a long magazine article rather than a 250-plus page book. Many of the incidents are fascinating. The wine fete at a POW camp was interesting as was the story about Uncle Louis, a prominent wine power broker who may or may-not-have-been a collaborator.
But the authors spend a bit too much time emphasizing how important wine is too France. On one hand we get the point; on the other hand the repeated claims make me wonder if the point is being stretched too far. I'm sure wine is and was very important to the French character, but outside of the vineyards how many people really saw it as something worth dying for? Maybe many, but I wonder.
The other complaint is that the authors tend to take the point of view that anyone involved with wine must be good. The chapter on the weinfurhers was very good, but the story of one such individual seemed rather diluted.
Worth a read if you love the subject of wine, but be prepared to have your attention wander.
Rating:
Summary: Diluted, lacks balance
Review: I honestly don't know what to make of this book. On the one hand, it contains fascinating stories, and is an inspiring account of people so devoted to their country and its "greatest treasures" that many risked everything to protect them. But the book leaves an unsettling aftertaste. It forgives too readily (and often overlooks) those who protected their interests not by resisting the Nazis but by capitulating to them. An anecdote. When I visited a major Cognac producer some summers ago, the house's tour leader explained how its ancient stores of brandy had survived the Nazi occuation of France: They had not been looted because the owners had "made a deal" with the Nazis. One wonders how many innocent deaths that deal and others like it had underwritten. Such treachery is more integral to the story of Vichy France than the resistance of those who hid treasures (and even people) in cellars and caves. But the Kladstrups only barely acknowledge this dark history. Where the narrative does strive for balance, it instead achieves a confusing schizophrenia. In one chapter the "weinfuhrer" of Bordeaux (a chief bureaucrat of the occupying Nazis) seems almost noble, acting as virtuously as possible within the constraints of the leviathan to which he was indentured. But a later chapter conveys enough evidence of his deceit and villainy that one concludes he is no different from the typical Nazi beast. These conflicting perspectives do not appear to reflect
the complexity of the man; rather, it seems the two authors were simply unable to agree on what position to take, and careless editing neglected to synthesize the various accounts. The book is well worth the read. But it has little value as a work of history and almost none as a morality tale.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting view of the effort to preserve what mattered
Review: I originally picked up this book because I was amused that a positive book could be written about France's efforts in World War II. When France couldn't hold out for longer than two weeks against Germany's invasion, this book makes clear the effort that the winegrowers and the resgions they lived in went through to preserve something central to France's national identity- wine.
Whether discussing the longing of French prisoners in German hands for wine, or the determined efforts of long-established houses to preseve their stocks and traditions in the face of mounting challenges posed by the German and pro-German Grench authorities intent on looting what they could for their own interests. Some discussion of a moderate amount is paid to the efforts of the heroic French Resistance, whose exploits were truly remarkable and dangerous, and one is able to feel the tension and anxiety that the people in the book felt as times grew worse.
While not a wine afficionado, or a fan of France's official efforts during the Second World War, this book was hard to put down, and the shorter length of this book came far too quickly. I learned a lot, came away with greater respect for France and its culture, and hope that the authors continue their writing efforts, as long as it's not another wine book.
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