![]() ![]() Wine and War has its stylistic irritations, which are apparent in its first sentence: "The steel door would not budge." Utterances like "bright sunlight glinted off newly leafed trees" or "Alsace's villages, which looked as if they had popped out of a Hansel and Gretel storybook" litter the text moreover, any documentary account that constantly takes us into the dreaming minds of protagonists 60 years ago is adding dubious embroidery. Whether the interlopers were Germans, Russians or even Americans, the punchline is always the same: the wall is demolished after the conflict or the occupation is over and, marvellous to behold, there lie all those bottles of wines that escaped rape and pillage and, naturally enough, taste all the better for their dark sojourn. It is a familiar story throughout Europe: the false wall in the cellar, behind which lie the most engrossingly delicious vintages, has been related to me in Guernsey and Jersey, Moravia, Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest. ![]() ![]() It is an account of how five prominent wine families in France during the Nazi occupation managed to maintain their dignities, their livelihoods and their stocks of wine. ![]() Wine and War, though, sets out to do no such thing. ![]()
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