Fortunately, winegrowers had an understanding ear in the man in charge of the country’s economic recovery program. He was Jean Monnet, who was soon to espouse the idea of a European Economic Community. Monnet had grown up among the vines of Cognac, where his family made the French brandy. He understood their problems and was acutely aware that one and a half million French families depended on wine for their livelihood.
But the new government, pressured by all sectors of the economy for assistance, could only go so far. Its main goal where wine was concerned was making sure there was an adequate supply. Thanks to Monnet’s urging, the government finally agreed to provide money for replacing old and sick vines.
The new program was especially welcome in Alsace, where most vineyards had been planted with high-yielding low-quality hybrids following the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War.
After World War I, the French government had ordered growers to rip out their hybrid vines and replace them with the traditional grape varieties of Alsace. Growers dragged their feet, complaining it was too expensive. The government did not force the issue.
When Alsace was annexed by Germany in 1940, new pressure was exerted, this time by Berlin. Get rid of the hybrids or else, the authorities warned. Still nothing happened.
One day in 1942, Alsatians awoke to the sound of sawing. Looking out their windows, they saw that their vineyards were full of Hitler Youth from Baden, Germany. The Third Reich had sent truckloads of the young people into Alsace armed with detailed maps of the vineyards and secateurs and saws. In one fell swoop, the hybrids, which had comprised 75 percent of the vineyards, were gone from Alsace.
In the opinion of most Alsatians, it was the one good thing the Germans did for Alsace. Now there was no choice but to replant.
Work, however, began slowly. Most of the vineyards were littered with unexploded mines and artillery shells. There was also a labor shortage; nearly all of Alsace’s young men had been drafted into the German army. Most were sent to the Russian front and a huge percentage had been killed. Those who survived were only now making their way home.
The waiting had been particularly difficult for the Hugels. Their eldest son, Georges, was now fighting in the French army; their second son, Johnny, still was in the German one.
Johnny returned home first. He had been in a German unit fighting near Lake Constance on the Austrian border when he spotted a column of French tanks approaching. Ducking into a nearby farmhouse, Johnny quickly shed his German uniform and traded it to a farmer for some old clothes. “Look after yourself,” the farmer called as Johnny rushed out to greet the troops. He was back in Riquewihr a few days later.
One day after that, Georges returned as well.
That was when they discovered they had been in the same battle. Georges had been fighting at Lake Constance too.
With the Hugels reunited and Alsace now completely liberated, the real celebrating could finally begin. “We went from cellar to cellar. We were plastered for three days,” Johnny said. “Every day someone else, one of our friends, was coming home. Every day someone else came back.”
But many did not. At least 40,000 young Alsatian men were killed fighting in the German army, most of them in Russia. Before liberation, death notices were required to state that the victim Gefallen für Führer, Volk und Vaterland (died for the Führer, people and Fatherland). Now, grieving families could say without fear that their sons had died on the Eastern front.
As Alsatians reclaimed their French identity, it was also safe to speak French. Instead of having to greet friends on the street by saying “Heil Hitler,” people now could say “Bon jour.” Men could also sport berets. Names of streets, businesses, towns and villages were restored as well.
Richenweïer became Riquewihr. Hügel und Söhne was once again Hugel et Fils.
Another name was about to be replaced too.
Ever since Burgundian winemakers had given one of their best parcels of vines to the now discredited Marshal Pétain, they had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
Each day when they went to work, the imposing stone gate of the Clos du Maréchal seemed to mock them. There must be something we can do about this, they thought. They called on a friend who was an attorney for advice. The Marshal’s property has all been confiscated by the government, they pointed out. Isn’t there some way we can get the vineyard back?
The attorney agreed to take their case to court and ask that the gift of the Clos du Maréchal be declared null and void. Much to their relief, the court ruled in their favor, and the parcel of vines passed back into the hands of the Hospices de Beaune.
A day after the decision, winegrowers armed with sledgehammers and picks converged on the vineyard and began knocking down the stone gate they had once so proudly erected.
Mademoiselle Yvonne Tridon, who had presented Pétain with a gift of wine on behalf of the Beaune Syndicat des Négociants, admitted that it was all a little strange. “We French are sometimes very hard to understand,” she said. “One day we are singing ‘Maréchal, nous voilà,’ and the next day we don’t ever want to hear about him again.”
Within an hour, the stone gate lay in ruins. But not quite all of it. During the bashing and smashing, Maurice Drouhin and his son Robert spirited away one of the posts.
Destruction of the Clos du Maréchal gate, however, did not end the controversy. There were still the wines made by the Hospices de Beaune on the Marshal’s behalf. The wines had the right to be bottled and labeled with Pétain’s name and a picture of the Hospices. It was an acute embarrassment to those who once had hailed Pétain as a savior.
Winegrowers, therefore, were alarmed when they heard that the government, which had confiscated Pétain’s property, had decided to put the wines up for auction. Before the auction could begin, however, the auction site was taken over by several groups protesting the sale. Among them were war veterans, Resistance veterans, the Federation of Deported Laborers and the Federation of Political Deportees. All complained vehemently that the sale was unpatriotic.
The auctioneer, Georges Rappeneau, a newcomer to the profession who had only conducted one other auction in his life, did not know what to do. He called the protesters into his office and tried to reason with them. They refused to listen and demanded that the sale be called off.
Then Rappeneau remembered where he was and how things were done in the heart of Burgundy. “Just a minute,” he told the protesters, “I’ll be right back.” Rappeneau went outside and asked one of his assistants to find glasses and a corkscrew. Once the glasses were handed out, he began filling them. He was pouring Clos du Maréchal. “Gentlemen,” he said, “let’s drink to a successful conclusion.” It was not long before the problem was worked out and the sale went ahead.
And who bought the wine? The veterans themselves!
They bottled the wine with Clos du Maréchal labels and resold it at a profit, the money going to support their organizations. One person suggested the Hospices could do even better by bottling the wine from Pétain’s former vineyard with the old Clos du Maréchal labels but with “ex” printed in front. “A good way to garner a little publicity and raise some extra money,” he suggested. The Hospices passed on that idea.
Although Maurice Drouhin was glad that Pétain’s vineyard had been returned to the Hospices de Beaune, he was pleased that he and Robert had managed to salvage the gatepost from the ex-Clos du Maréchal. “It’s a piece of our history,” he told Robert. “We ought to learn from it, not destroy it blindly as though we can change everything that has happened.”
It was in that spirit of facing up to history that Maurice responded quickly to a letter he received from Dr. Erich Eckardt shortly after the war. Dr. Eckardt was the German judge who presided at Maurice’s trial in 1942 and ordered that he be released from prison. Now, Eckardt was pleading for help, saying that the Allied authorities in Germany had refused to let him practice his profession. “Is there anything you can do, anything you can say that will help me?”
he asked Maurice. Maurice remembered how Eckardt had been willing to listen to his defense at the trial. He had no hesitation about responding with a notarized statement saying Eckardt was a “decent man who had judged me fairly and impartially.” Soon afterward, the Allies reinstated Eckardt as a judge.
Robert-Jean de Vogüé received a letter too. He was being summoned to court as a “hostile witness” against Otto Klaebisch. The former weinführer of Champagne had been brought before a postwar tribunal investigating economic crimes. The court was stunned when de Vogüé, instead of condemning Klaebisch, spoke in his behalf. He conceded that he and the weinführer had had many sharp disagreements but emphasized that Klaebisch had always been very correct. “He was in a difficult situation,” de Vogüé told the court. “I don’t believe for a minute that he himself would have ever ordered my arrest or those of my colleagues. It was the Gestapo.”
Klaebisch was exonerated.
Baron Philippe de Rothschild felt his heart sink a little when he saw the German postmark on the letter he had just received. He opened it up. “Dear Baron Philippe,” the letter said, “I have always loved the wines of Mouton, and I wonder if there is any chance you would let me represent them for you in Germany.”
The letter was signed Heinz Bömers, the former weinführer of Bordeaux.
Although the war years had brought the baron sadness and pain, his response was immediate. “Yes, why not,” he replied. “It is a new Europe we are building.”
“The wind of the apocalypse that blew from the east for sixty months, driving away laughter and happiness from the kingdom of vines, and leaving only the silence of death, has finally ended.” With those words, Grand Master Georges Faiveley declared open the thirty-second meeting of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin. They called it the Chapitre de Résurrection. The Burgundy wine fraternity had been “put to sleep” during the war.
But on November 16, 1946, it was resurrected with all the pomp and ceremony the wine community could generate. Government officials, foreign dignitaries, military leaders and Burgundy’s greatest winemakers gathered for a feast of wine and food and to hear author Georges Duhamel, a member of the Académie Française, extol the virtues and values of wine.
Like everyone, Duhamel had gorged himself on a seven-course meal and had been plied with half a dozen wines, including a 1938 Beaune Clos des Mouches from Maurice Drouhin, a 1940 Clos Blanc de Vougeot, a 1942 Nuits Clos de Thorey, and a 1929 Nuits Château-Gris. Under such circumstances, it was not surprising that Duhamel positively overflowed in his praise.
“Wine was one of the first signs of civilization to appear in the life of human beings,” he said. “It is in the Bible, it is in Homer, it shines through all the pages of history, participating in the destiny of ingenious men. It gives spirit to those who know how to taste it, but it punishes those who drink it without restraint.”
William Bullitt, who had been the U.S. ambassador to France at the beginning of the war, also had a message for the Confrérie. “Like everyone else, when I became ambassador, I was told to keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut,” he said. “Now, here I am doing just the opposite, opening my mouth to sing your songs and closing my eyes to savor your wine.”
It was an evening of shared pleasures and reminiscences. Time had already begun to soften some of the memories of the war. As the wine continued to flow, people began telling stories. One guest recalled the experiences of a friend, a man from Chantilly who had served in the French army.
His friend, he told the others at his table, was a great wine lover who had been away from home for four long discouraging years. When the war ended, he could not wait to get back to his cellar, where he had locked up several hundred bottles of wine. With great anticipation and some trepidation, he inserted the key that he had carried with him for four years into the lock. It turned. The door was still locked! Excitedly, he opened it and pushed into the dark room. Pulling a flashlight from his pocket, he shined it around.
Everywhere there was a sparkle of glass from the bottles. Everything was just as he left it. Gingerly, he eased one of the bottles out of the rack. It was still corked. So was the next bottle and the next.
Carrying them from the cave out into the light, he saw that the bottles were all in perfect shape.
Except for one small thing—they were all empty.
German soldiers had indeed broken into the cellar, prying open the door without breaking the lock. They must have been ecstatic when they discovered what was there. After consuming as much wine as they could, the Germans pushed the corks back into the bottles and put the bottles back on the racks. Before leaving, one of the soldiers took time to leave a thank-you note in the cave. “Dear Sir, Our compliments. Your taste in wine is impeccable!”
When the laughter at the table had died down, the Grand Master of the Confrérie called on Duhamel to bring the evening to a close. The old academician and wine lover returned to the podium with pleasure.
“This celebration has given us optimism and confidence,” he said. “It proves that our beloved France, so tested and so unhappy, still has resources on which she can count. In coming here tonight, we have proven that our France, this kingdom of wine, will live on.”
* * *
Epilogue
INTENSE HEAT, FREEZING TEMPERATURES, HAIL, THEN MORE HEAT. 1945 seemed like certain disaster.
But the peasants who worked the vines believed there was a special relationship between war and grapes. They had always said that the Good Lord sends a poor wine crop when war starts and a fine, festive one to mark its end.
And they were right. 1939, the year World War II began, was a horrendous vintage, whereas 1945, l’année de la victoire (the year of the victory), was one of the best ever recorded.
Wine critics ran out of superlatives: “I give it six stars out of five!” one said. “These wines will not be ready to drink for fifty years,” another predicted. Old-timers compared them to 1870, 1893 and other legendary vintages of the past.
Although the 1945 crop was minuscule, only half of what had been harvested in 1939, the wines were incredibly rich and concentrated, “a recompense,” as one observer put it, “for the years of misery, war and deprivation.”
Mother Nature did most of the work. Because winemakers lacked sugar, sulfur and other chemicals, the wines had to be made in an extremely natural way. To make up for sugar, winemakers increased the time that the must, or fermenting juice, remained in contact with the grape skins. Those skins had been packed with extra natural sugar by the hot weather. Because of a bottle shortage, wines remained longer in the cask, developing even greater character and complexity.
In a sense, 1945 was the last great vintage of the nineteenth century. For winemakers and winegrowers, the end of the war marked the beginning of the twentieth century, as high-axle tractors replaced horses, and bottling machines replaced women who traditionally did that job, leaving no doubt that a new era in winemaking had begun.
Vineyard life changed too. Time was no longer told by the church bells; vines no longer set the rhythm and pace of life. “Workers used to be part of the family; now they are employees,” Robert Drouhin said. “Instead of a festival and big feast after the harvest, we pay them, give them a glass of wine and say goodbye.
“The increase in economic well-being has led to a change in mentality. More and more people are thinking about the profitability of wine rather than the quality. I think there used to be a lot more pride.”
Robert fondly recalls the walks he and his father took through the vineyards and everything Maurice tried to impart to him. “He always said that when you are hiring someone, look at the quality of the person. It is very easy to find a good technician; it’s much harder and more important to have a good person.”
In 1957, when Maurice suffered a stroke, Robert, who was twenty-four, was forced to drop out of oenology school to take over the operation. It was a rough beginning. “I certainly made enough mistakes,” he said.
Maurice died in 1962. A few years later, while going through his father’s papers, Robert discovered a letter Maurice had written to his wife from prison in 1941:
In my meditations, I find that nothing in life counts more than the happiness we can give others, the good that we can do. This is what we must teach our children, to think of others more than they think of themselves, for it is in this way they will find the most noble satisfaction of all.
World War II was the defining moment in the lives of those who would run France’s vineyards. It shaped not only who they were but all they would become.
Like Robert Drouhin, May-Eliane Miailhe de Lencquesaing credits her father with instilling in her the principles of hard work and commitment to quality.
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure Page 26