Wine and War: the French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure by Don and Petie Kladstrup.- 2002 - 334 Pages

 

Wine and War: the French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure by Don and Petie Kladstrup.- 2002 - 334 Pages 

Very  soon after  France surrendered to the Nazis, in May of 1940, the Germans made it their goal to appropriate France's  wine.  Wine was a  important part of daily French life and the vast vineyards supported much of the population.  Top Nazis officials fancied themselves experts on wine.

 As the war went on the Germans soon required all wine to sold to Germans, served in restaurants only open to Germans.  Vineyard workers were conscripted to work in Germany.  Vital horses were taken.

Vineyard owners began to seek ways to hide their products. 

They hid their most prized wines immediately, knowing that the Germans would take them and, more importantly, not appreciate them. They built walls in their cellars, closing in the wines behind them, and had their children collect spiders so they'd spin webs to make the wall look older. Dust from old carpets were collected to put on cheap bottles to make them appear rare.

These are the true stories of vignerons who sheltered Jewish refugees in their cellars and of winemakers who risked their lives to aid the resistance. They made chemicals in secret laboratories to fuel the resistance and fled from the Gestapo when arrests became imminent.

There were treacheries too, as some of the nation's winemakers supported the Vichy regime, or the Germans themselves, and collaborated.

Don and Petie Kladstrup are former journalists who have written extensively about wine and France for numerous publications. Don, a winner of three Emmys and numerous other awards, was a foreign correspondent for ABC and CBS television news. Petie, an Overseas Press Club winner, was a newspaper journalist and more recently protocol officer for the U.S. ambassador to UNESCO. The Kladstrups divide their time between Paris and Normandy