I recently polished off an interesting book: Wine & War: The French, the Nazis & the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure by Don and Petie Kladstrup. As the title implies, this book is a non-fiction, predominately anecdotal account of France’s wine country while it was occupied by the Germans in World War II. The book centers around Bordeaux, Champagne, Alsace, the Loire and Burgundy with particular emphasis on Bordeaux given it’s strategic importance and overall size.
World War II has been covered from every conceivable angle and from every possible perspective. Up until this point, the most interesting accounts to me have revolved around all of the battles and strategy. Not much of a stretch considering I am a red-blooded American male. Win & War is somewhat different. Though it does touch on those that took up arms in the war, it focuses on an industry that one would not necessarily think about when discussing war. France’s wine industry and winemakers were profoundly impacted by the occupation of France and the course of the war. Through individual’s stories and intuitive synthesis, the Kladstrups paint a vivid picture of what it meant to tend to vineyards during World War II in France and the role that the wine industry played there and abroad.
Germany occupied France from May of 1940 till December of 1944. During that period, as one might imagine, the wine trade in France suffered dearly. Many vineyards were occupied by the German military. All markets save Germany were cut off for wine export. Winemakers were required to fill whatever orders they received from the German government regardless of size or price. French wine cellars holding decades if not centuries of wine history were open to plunder or destruction. Vineyard conditions were severely stressed due to rationing of raw materials for maintainance and a lack of labor. It is a wonder that anything survived and wine was produced at all.
All of these hardships and their historical context is neatly presented by the Kladstrups in Wine & War. The stories, as relayed in most cases by the winemakers that lived them, are distinctly human and put a face on historical reality that many would not recognize at fist as a natural consequence of military strife. Beyond that, it highlights what an integral part of French society that wine plays by showing how close the wine industry came to complete annihilation . Without wine, there is no France or at least no France that any of the French would want to live in.
Wine & War is an interesting read where one can get a snapshot of World War II’s impact on a specific group of people. The stories relayed in the book are sometimes boring, sometimes riveting, but always real. I enjoyed the book and although it did not change the way I live my life or keep me up at night turning pages, it did give me a better understanding of how important wine is to French culture and what a terrible struggle it was for the people of France’s wine country during the German occupation of WWII
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