Wine and War

I'm not sure what the French hold more dear ... the art in the Louvre or the wine in Bordeaux.  Regardless, if you every wondered what it was like to be a wine producer during the Nazi occupation of France, read this book.  This page-turner gives you a ringside seat to the systematic campaign of plunder and pillaging of the French wine region.  It reads like a cops-and-robbers story, pitting clever vintners on one side who spent the occupation years scheming to hide wines in buried cellars, relabel the best bottles with "off-brand" labels, and more.  On the other side, you have Germans who used to represent these same wine producers on the German market, suddenly drafted into the Wehrmacht as Wine Fuhrers, trying to beat the French at this game.  In the words of one famous restauranteur, "To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country ... and it's wine!