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Wine Books: Don & Petie Kladstrup

The Kladstrups write on the history of wine.

Wine & War
Don & Petie Kladstrup
Available from Amazon
0-3407-6678-6

Don Kladstrup, a US journalist, and his wife Petie, a freelance writer, have set about gathering an impressive collection of what are essentially anecdotal reports regarding wine-related activities during World War II. In many places these are heartfelt accounts from famous names of the French wine business, such as the Hugels of Alsace, the Drouhins of Burgundy, Gaston Huet of the Loire, the Miaihles of Château Pichon-Lalande, and so on. In others they are wine-related tales - for example, how the Maquis (French Resistance) were smuggled across France's internal borders within wine barrels, which had to be assembled around them, a process that took two hours. They have loosely interweaved these tales in a chronological format, flitting from one account to another, as the war years progress, with some chapters coming away at a tangent to discuss the role of the Weinführers, for instance, or how life was for the PoWs. This all makes for an enthralling read, but the Kladstrups have sensitively intermingled tales that fascinate and inspire with those that more truly reflect the reality of living in an occupied country. Fear, deceit, courage, tyranny, malnutrition and death all play a part. Well recommended.

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