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Summary: A Fantastic Account for Wine Buffs and History Buffs
Review: This book recounts the French wine industry's response to Nazi occupation during World War II. It details the adventures of several of France's most prominent wine families, those families' contributions to French underground resistance movements, and their struggles to keep their best bottles out of German hands. For wine lovers, the book gives a new appreciation of France's long tradition of winemaking. For the history buff, the book offers a glimpse into how the war threatened to destroy a hallmark of French culture and shows how civilians offered their own brand of resistance to Nazi occupation. For either wine or history lovers, the book is worth reading.
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Summary: Interesting idea
Review: This book tells the story of French wine makers and wine during the Second World War. In the introduction, the authors point how important wine is to France. "It is not just a beverage or commercial product to be poured from a bottle. It is much more than that. Like the flag,...it goes to the country's heart and soul." That said, the history of World War Two in France cannot be considered complete without the tales of what happened to the wine and the winemakers.
The book is organized in chronological fashion, starting in 1939, the last pre-war grape harvest. Each subsequent year of the war is represented in one or more chapters of details and war stories. We read about wine makers who are sent to POW camps, the "weinfuhrers", Germans whose job it was to manage the wine industry in occupied France, and families of wine makers whose men-folk are away fighting or imprisoned. The authors point out how useful it could be to keep tabs on wine, such as when the Resistance was able to notify British intelligence about an imminent invasion in North Africa based on their tracking of wine shipments by the Germans.
At the beginning of each chapter is a picture of a wine scene related to the war. Unfortunately, the pictures are printed in extremely light shades of gray and white and virtually uninterpretable as a result. Captions for the pictures appear only in the List of Illustrations at the beginning of the book. The book includes an index, but no bibliography. (Much of the material for the book came from extensive personal interviews.)
For the most part, the book is informative, but it doesn't quite live up to the lofty promises of the introduction. Part of the problem is that a number of the stories from the wine makers that the authors uncovered aren't all that remarkable. In other cases, war histories of individual wine makers are chopped up to fit in the chronological organization of the chapters, which detracts from the overall coherence. Nonetheless, historians of the Second World War may find substantial material of interest in this book.
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Summary: Of patriotism and wine
Review: This book was an unexpected delight! The truth of the exploits of the French to save their wine, their livelihood, and their country's identity during the Nazi Occupation of WWII is told from very individual perspectives. We learn of winemakers struggling to keep their vineyards alive despite a shortages of able-bodied men and copper sulfate, trampling by troops, blackouts, droughts, and raiding Nazi soldiers. even if your knowledge of wine is minimal, names like Chateau Lafite-Rothschild and Moet are likely to ring a bell. To understand the struggles that these families endured and often overcame becomes very real and understandable in the writings of the authors. The human toll of war as well as the economic costs are played against the unflagging spirit of the people and their love of the land, the wine, and their country. Not only is this a great story of wine and war but of patriotism as well. It has been convenient to belittle the French in recent times relative to their attitude about war, but this book reminds us that they endured something we were fortunate never to have to deal with -- enemy occupation and the resultant destruction and demoralization.
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Summary: Of wine, war and men
Review: This is a pleasant book which reads quite quickly past the first 80 pages. The beginning is indeed a little slow. Besides, am I already too old that I consider awkward to be told what is a ghetto and what was Kristallnacht?The authors probably remained faithful to the stories they were told, but it is a little weird to read that Ms So and So was hiding Jews in a shed in the garden while the Germans were occupying her château, but still she was lucky because she could save her wines. Strange perspective. Apart from that, I delighted in various anecdotes, for example the way the Résistance learned about German troops' progression by the orders they sent to the French châteaux. All things considered, the book is... well... very human.
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Summary: Fabulous story
Review: This is a wonderful book. I purchased it as a wine lover but finished it being far more interested in French history than I had previously been. This is a book much more about the French people during the brief period from the late 1930s to the end of WWII than about wine itself. It is a book that illustrates a history I had previously ignored. The story follows several wine families from the major wine regions: Bordeaux, Champagne, the Rhone, and Burgundy. The book also looks closely at the Germans who were ultimately placed in charge of these area's vinyards. It is the relationship between the growers and the German wine chiefs that makes for the most interesting part of the book. My only criticism would be that the book could have been longer, with more stories and detail.
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Summary: France's most coveted treasure
Review: This is an engrossing, and distinctive observation on one of the many impacts of World War II on both France and Germany. It is not simply a book about French wine, but a broader study of the impact of the German occupation upon French daily life. What is fascinating is how much the Germans coveted French cuisine, and especially wine, and how gluttony inspired the Nazi government's quest to strip the French larder as part of spoils of war. "Wine and War" does indicate what a highly regarded treasure French wine represents in Western culture. This is a terrific read if you like wine or enjoy history (and is twice the pleasure for those, like me, who appreciate both). It is not a serious, scholarly history of the war, but instead a compilation of various anecdotes -- oral history being put into print. From a historical perspective, what I found the most interesting was the author's indication of how the legacy of the harsh reparations extracted from Germany by France in World War I came back to haunt the French in terms of the German thirst for revenge in the Second World War. There is an element of suspense throughout the book, in terms of the Germans possibly killing the goose that laid the golden eggs (though the reader already knows the outcome). However, the work manages to represent that beyond the greed and thuggery of some Germans, a number maintained a sense of humanity and long range vision regarding a people who would always remain their neighbors. You won't learn alot about wine reading this book; you will learn more about history. But what you will learn about French wine is what a covetted treasure this has regarded in any of the German-French conflicts, and what a critical part of French culture it represents.
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Summary: Wine and Remembrance
Review: This is not a book about wine--it's actually a non-fiction historical thriller with wine as the prize. All you need to know about wine is what most people know: Wine is part of the French soul. It is not merely a drink or a product. It is more important than all the perfumes and fashions and cheeses put together. Even those funny cars the French make that look like vacuum cleaners. Nothing in American cultural life has similar status. At the outset of World War II France suffered the shame and disgrace not of defeat but of total collapse. She had the world's largest army--one that gave the Germans pause, in fact-- and yet somehow was under the Nazi jackboot in about six weeks. Naturally, the Nazis set about to systematically loot the country. Here I'd like to ask a question I've not seen asked before: the Nazis took it as written that they and their culture were absolutely superior to everyone else in the world. Why then their unbridled need to steal the cultural riches of all the nations they conquered? Some booty was sold to finance the war, but most of the cultural treasures--France's wines and artworks, for example--were stolen merely out of greed and jealousy. When it came to looting France's wines, the Nazis were well-organized. They appointed experts called weinfuhrers to organize the theft, much of which was conducted under a charade of legality: The Nazis overvalued the mark, devalued the franc, closed all other export markets, told the producers what their prices would be and ordered them to sell the wine. Here Don and Petie Kladstrups unveil the amazingly inbred world of wine, in which everbody of importance seems to be related to, married to or employed by someone else of equal importance. As the authors show, this meant the weinfuhrers were sometimes as loyal to France as to Germany. The winemakers resisted as often as they could and perpetrated many frauds on the Nazis. They saved a fair amount of their greatest wines and sold the Wehrmacht as much plonk as they could get away with. The Kladstrups tell how--and in doing so they have rescued a small but important piece of history. The New Europe leans toward institutional forgetfulness today--and so does France herself. Memories of collaboration intrude all too easily, and these are followed by nettlesome ambiguities and doubts. Ratting on your neighbor was collaboration, but so was trading with the Nazis--even when you had no choice. Marshal Petain, head of the Vichy government was condemned at war's end and DeGaulle hailed as a hero--but surely it was easier to be heroic in London? There are a couple of minor factual errors and a couple of anecdotes that aren't credible, but most of this complicated but absorbing tale rings true. Some scenes the Kladstrups re-create are slyly amusing, a few are comic and many--the best of themn--are intensely moving. These were proud people, remember, whose faces were ground into the dirt by brutish conquerors every day. For five years they struggled desperately to save their lives and their families, their self-respect and their hope for a future. It's a hell of a story.
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Summary: In-depth examination of the French's conflicts with Nazis
Review: This unusual survey of the French wine industry might sound initially like a food book; but Wine & War provides an in-depth examination of the French's conflicts with the Nazis and the battle for its wine industry. Three years of eyewitness interviews and research lend to stories of the men and women who risked their lives to save their industry from Nazi ruin.
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Summary: Wine and War and People
Review: Today, much of the wine business is just that - business. This book is a reminder that wine is also about family, friendship and tradition. The Kladstrups have written a sympathetic, even romantic account of how the French wine families survived during WWII. From a vintner's perspective, this war was largely fought on family farms and in ancient villages. The authors have done a great job of revealing the intriguing personalities, French and German, of the wine community of that time. Don't be fooled by the title. The book is indeed about wine and war, but it is mainly about people.
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Summary: The invasion of the wine snatchers
Review: Very early in WINE & WAR we are given a description of the bucolic and pastoral life that French winegrowers enjoyed. It was a life "of legend and myth, a life which, in many ways, had changed little since the middle ages...plowing was done with horses. Planting, picking, and pruning were done according to the phases of the moon. Older people often reminded younger ones that the merits of pruning were discovered when St.Martin's donkey got loose in the vineyards." The authors have woven together winegrowers tales, geography, viticulture science and French culture to give us a very enjoyable history of "the kingdom of wine" during WWII. Winemaking had a history of troubles even before the war. Phylloxera, an insect that attacked the vines roots, nearly wiped out the industry in the mid 19th century; the Depression followed and then destruction from the trench warfare and artillery barrages of the "Great War". The book reveals an interesting fact about assistance America provided. We know the French are grateful for our fighting on the battlefields during both wars, but some help is probably still a bit hard to swallow. During the Phylloxera blight "the remedy was something totally un-French. Growers discovered that by grafting their vines onto American rootstocks, which were naturally resistant to the root eating louse, they could save them." Lest this fact cause us to swell with pride, the authors tell a humorous story of sacrilege committed by an American Colonel, sufficient to embarrass wine lovers everywhere. After an Allied operation near the Rhone river, the French, in gratitude presented some of Burgundy's finest wines to the Americans. Being naturally hospitable we invited French soldiers and their General to share. The "waiters marched in bearing the bottles on silver trays [the bottles] were bubbling gently"; the Colonel had ordered the wine be served hot, heating it with medical alcohol. The authors say that the French General "faced with the greatest crisis so far in Franco-American relations" nevertheless drained his glass but "murmured, 'Liberation, liberation, what crimes have been commited in thy name!'". Humorous anecdotes and tales of bizarre behavior are scattered throughout and are used to show how the French had an all consuming passion for preserving their national treasure. The account of Operation Anvil is a perfect example. French and American troops were to attack from southern France, through the Rhone Valley and Burgundy, and link up with the Allies pushing out from Normandy. The operation was frought with delays. Perhaps its unofficial name offers an explanation. The Champagne Campaign went through parts of France renown for food, drink, scenery, and entertainment. Some strategic decisions also played a role. French General Monsabert (the same one who suffered the hot libation for liberation's sake) ensured that no more crimes were committed. He planned some attacks and it was no coincidence that the French "advanced up the western side of the Rhone, where the best vineyards were planted. The Americans went up the other side, where the lesser growths were." The French seriousness about their wine is highlighted by the fact that an intelligence Colonel delayed an attack on the Cote d'Or or the Golden Escarpment - the site of Burgundy's best vineyards - until he received a report that "we have found the weak point[s] in the German defenses. Every one is on a vineyard of inferior quality." There were other threats that were not military. Economic crimes were committed that were perhaps even a greater disaster to winemaking. The book tells about the Weinfuhrers; former German businessmen, who, knowing the wine industry, were commissioned into the Army and sent to France for the sole purpose of administering the shipment of wine to Germany. They operated from Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne. There are chapters describing the massive shipments of wine to Germany, and how the French responded by hiding the best vintages, and fobbing off lesser quality wines. This section of the book deals with the intriguing economics of the business. Economic conditions grew worse as the war turned against Germany. More and more was demanded from France: wine, food, farm horses, metals, supplies, and eventually men to work in Germany. The French turned on the Vichy government, president Petain and prime minister Laval and also began actively resisting Germany. The French Resistance, there from the beginning, became popular by 1943 following the setting up of the Service du Travail Obligatore (STO), a program of forced labor where men were sent to work in German industry. Germany also began using wine as a solvent and as industrial alcohol. To ensure that it was not sold or drunk, heating oil was added; this spoilt it for human consumption, but more than anything else, enraged the French. WINE & WAR is well written and offers a unique look at France during WWII. It will be of interest to history buffs, fans of WWII military exploits, readers who don't mind economics and geography, and of course, wine lovers.
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