Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure Paperback by Donald Kladstrup and,‎ Petie Kladstrup (Broadway Books)

I read "Wine and War" shortly after returning from a 3-week trip to France during which we became much more knowledgeable about French wines and their place in France's culture and history and raison d'etre. Remnants of WWII still prevail, particularly in the historical center of the many small villages that we visited. Two aspects of France's rich history emerge repeatedly in the national conscience - the Revolution and the Occupation.

The book covers the elaborate schemes enacted by the French to protect their valuable cellars, their vineyards and their wine-making operations from the looting, gluttonous Germans. Germany actually established "Weinfuhrers" whose sole responsibility was to organize the sourcing, purchasing and shipment of wines from France to Germany. The French winemakers learned to seal off sections of their cellars to avoid detection, to sell the Germans only their inferior wines, to make new wines look like old wines by dusting the bottles, and many other techniques.

A huge cache of fine wines was repatriated from Eagle's Nest at the end of the war in a bizarre and intricate wartime evacuation. Cases of wine were strapped onto stretchers and carefully lowered hundreds of meters to a waiting convoy of trucks. Soldiers stripped their tanks and trucks of non-essential equipment to make room for the precious cargo. This episode demonstrated the true reverence of the French for their sacred wines.

It's a well-researched book. The final ~14% includes Footnotes, Bibliography, Glossary, etc. In the Epilogue the author discusses how some of the oldest and most respected wineries re-established themselves after the war. There is a lot of interesting history and culture in this book, not only about wine, but about the wine dynasties and the resistance movement that helped France to retain its dignity and reclaim the great heritage as the finest winemakers in the world. I really enjoyed reading about places we had visited during our tour. We enjoyed a wine tasting in a 13th century cellar in Beaune, the wine capital of Burgundy and I wondered whether it had been bricked off during the war to protect the inventory.