World War I had a profound effect on the French wine industry. The Champagne wine region was a battleground for most of the war. In addition, the loss of markets, labor shortages and production problems presented huge challenges for the industry. Despite these challenges, wine was a growing part of French national identity. It also played a daily role in the war. French soldiers received a daily wine ration because French military leaders and doctors considered wine a fortifying tool that increased combat effectiveness. To discuss France, wine, and World War I, the World War I Podcast recently hosted Walter Wolf III—a lawyer, military historian, and wine expert.
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Welcome To The World War I History Podcast produced by the MacArthur Memorial we invite you to follow us on Twitter at MacArthur 1880 or find the general Douglas MacArthur Memorial on Facebook today we’re going to be talking about wine France and World War I and
This is a topic that we have wanted to cover for a very long time because it’s such an interesting intersection of military history cultural history nationalism and wine and joining me today is our subject matter expert Walter wolf Walter was born on December 7th in a US Naval Hospital so of course
He became a military historian and he has degrees in theater and European history and a law degree prior to law school he was a museum curator first in a private museum with significant Holdings related to the first world war and then in the historic New Orleans collection where he focused on diplomat
Atic and military history as well as French and Spanish Colonial New Orleans after law school he practiced in the fields of admiralty law copyright law entertainment law and international law more recently and prior to the covid pandemic he was the intellectual property rights manager for the national
World War II museum where he also performed curatorial duties he also holds the level two certificate with distinction for wines and spirits from the wine Spirits trust in London and a certificate as a Sherry specialist from the Sherry Council of Herz Spain he is currently preparing for the exam Wine
And Spirits trust level three Advanced certificate in wines and he’s been a member of the international Wine and Food Society based in London in 2001 he was also inducted into the commander de Bordeaux based in Bordeaux France well welcome sir and thank you for joining us
Today well thank you glad to be here now that was a pretty interesting bio and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your background maybe a little bit more because we haven’t interviewed anyone before who was an expert on military history and wine so
Give us a little bit more background well I’m always you know because because I was training in the law I’m always a little skittish about labeling myself an expert because you have to go through a torturous amount of work to get someone admitted as an
Expert in court but I think I do know a little bit about these subjects it goes back to as a child I really loved history and uh it was one of my favorite subjects as a child I was talking to two other uh former colleagues who are
Historians and we all agreed that it’s something that happens to you know it starts pretty early with a lot of people it seems and the that’s the History part of it I mean I grew up you know playing with toy soldiers and all the stuff that
You know children my of that period did the wine background comes through sort of a funny family connection uh my mother was a professor of uh French literature at tuland and she’ lived in France for uh a couple of years including well she was in Paris but she
Also lived in burgundy in djon to be specific and so she she developed uh a fondness for French wine and so when I was growing up uh but when I starting around when I was I think 12 she in the French tradition she she would give me a
Little bit of wine a dash of wine with dinner and uh her her parents loved wine and we uh spent a lot of time drinking uh at Christmas and Thanksgiving we uh particularly drank chatti which is a a a Southern rone Wine which is a lovely
Food wine and so that kind of started me down the path of being interested in wine and I studied it uh as an amateur for several years and then um just a few years ago I decided I really want to you know get more into the knowledge of
About wine and dig into into how wine is made and that’s why I did the the wct or the wine and spirits educational trust course really loved it and decided to go get the next level uh and I’ve actually been a legal advisor to bars and restaurants here in New Orleans because
That’s that’s a pretty welldeveloped industry although it’s going through a very hard time right now so that’s how I got down that road and then of course I worked um as a museum curator before I went to law school and uh wound up during uh during college I particularly
Became fascinated by the first world war especially the causes of the first world war which you know there’s a vast amount of literature written about it more so than the second world war which seems to have a a cleaner story line if nothing else and uh and also my first job was
Working I was actually working for a World War I veteran in that first uh Museum position and it was his personal Holdings he was an engineering officer in the first Infantry Division he was sent over to learn how to make trenches and I actually did some oral history
Interviews with him he had a fascinating story and he was really bitter or he was not bitter but he was disappointed because right before the the first big battles that the first Infantry Division were in he was uh pulled out of the line and sent back to lenworth Kansas to
Teach um to teach soldiers how to dig trenches and that’s how he spent the rest of the war but his he had he had a younger brother who fought in the 42nd division oh okay MacArthur’s division exactly exactly right right can you give us a sense of the cultural importance of
Wine in France and how does World War I impact this relationship sure the modern uh stereotypes and Impressions about France and wine and what we think of today as France as this this not only a vast is still a vast wine producer but that every every French person in the
Streets intimately knows wine and drinks wine every day uh which is actually changing a little bit demographically in in 2021 but but you have to go back to the 19th century that’s when the the world of of wine that we know today associated with France really began
Because prior prior to the middle of 19 century wine especially fine wine the thing the kind of wines that are famous today that make news they were not available to the vast majority of people there was no one spectator there was no one culture as we understand it today it
Was basically basically you know fine ones were were the world of the Aristocrat and then the wealthy you know whereas the average Frenchman or the average French person did have access to Wine but it was it was pretty rough stuff it was not particularly sophisticated and that’s going to lead
Us into a discussion of the the wine that was issued during the first world war which was given the name pinard and pinard roughly translated it’s it’s sort of the French term for swill you know the British have the lovely term plunk for bad wine or cheap unappealing wine
Which as far as I can tell actually was developed during the first world war that plon is probably the uh the British solders mangling of either Blanc for white or some other French word that got distorted into plon but it’s still I think a great term in any event if we
Look at the changes there were three big changes in the 19th century that made wine much more available more widespread and led ultimately to the French army for a number of reasons buying up vast oceans of wine to supply to to their troops the first big change was the rise
Of the railroad and that that changed life and economics all over Europe and all over the US it was a major a major development in transportation because before that everything either went by horse or by sea and in the 1840s ra railroads started to connect different regions of France so that
Different regions wines could be brought to a new market so that uh for example in the north where there not as many Vineyards you know all the all the vast amount of Southern Wine in the Ron Valley and in the langad do those could be brought to the north and find new
Markets even langued do which is a region we’re going to talk about some more because it has a very important part in World War One at least for supplying wine it is right next to it borders Spain it the one flank of it is Spain the north borders bordeau and then the right
Uh or I’m sorry the the more easterly side of langad do touches the ran Valley which produces a lot of great wine so with that rise of the railroads uh you could suddenly move wine all over the country the next big and I’m I’m sort of summarizing here the next big event that
Changed the course of French wine and really disrupt Ed the French wine market because between 1840 and 1870 the amount of wine being produced in France literally doubled so that was a massive increase in production of wine also the railroads could bring the enabled access to regions of France and areas of France
That hadn’t been planted as Vineyards before because it didn’t seem economical and suddenly it was economical to go to these new areas that hadn’t been planted as as wine vineyards and the next big event was the outbreak of fera fera is a tiny little it’s defined as a l it’s a
Little like a insect and it uh it was brought over from North America apparently some record show by some uh English botanists who were fascinated by they brought American root stock wine root stock from America to France to see if it would grow in in French soil and
These uh flox basically attacked the existing French rootstock and destroyed them because they were not there was there’s very little way of Defending against the felox and the only way that the French were able to save their wine industry and protect uh their Vineyards was to graft they took American root
Stock but the grapes on American root stock were not quite as developed or good they took the American root stock and they grafted it to French grapes or european grapes and that produced a Hardy a heartier root stock and a heartier Vineyard that could resist the
Attack of felox but it was first seen I believe in the rone in 1863 or 1862 and then it moved North to Bordeaux to Champagne to all the other regions of of France and uh caused Havoc but uh they were able to rescue the French were able to rescue their their their rootstock
Then the the third major change there a classification of 1855 which brought a new regulation and new um supervision of at least one major wine producing area and that was Bordeaux and the Bordeaux classification of 1855 was the brainchild of Louis Napoleon or Napoleon III however you want to call him it was
An exhibition in Paris one of these International exhibitions the year before French wine and particularly bordeau had suffered from a bad crop they were having a tough time and his idea was to create this classification system where to make life apparently simpler for the consumer all the all the
Houses all the Chateau of Bordeaux would be ranked by quality you had first growth second growth third growth fourth growth and so on and a lot of the most famous Bordeaux wines today the ones that uh people you know pay a great deal of money for those were all basically
Established in the uh in the classification of 1855 so famous ones like chatu lur chatu the feet those ones were made famous and that system is still in place today and is in incredibly rigid there’s only been one major change since 1855 to the uh 1855 classification and that was the
Elevation of uh muton roseld from a second growth to a first growth and that happened in 1973 and that was a big deal and uh the Rashia the owners of mut Rashia were very proud of that and they made a great great big deal out of that
So all those events kind of created the system and the French wine world that we know today so clearly in the decades leading up to 1914 there is a lot going on in the French wine industry so how is the war going to impact the industry
Well it did two things it obviously in certain areas especially in Champagne which we can talk about a little bit more in detail you know the the German Army invaded all the way to the m river which runs through champagne so that had huge effects on production of champagne
On The Vineyards the destruction of The Vineyards at least in half of champagne in the 19th century and most of the 20th century the world basically knew three very famous regions of France I mean if you know anything about wine then you’ve heard of champagne Bordeaux and burgundy
And uh fortunately Bordeaux uh was you know it’s on the U it’s on the west coast of France and it was far from the battlefield reasonably far from the battlefields burgundy was actually except for champagne was actually quite close to the battlefields so you know burgundy was in sort of interesting
Position because wine from burgundy could travel most quickly to the battlefield and some of the the wine in burgundy some areas in burgundy produce wine for the French army whereas you know champagne as I said before was right in the middle of everything and you know from from September of 1914 up
Until 1918 you at least half of champagne was held by the Germans and that caused all sorts of problems in terms of any kind of production and there were several years where champagne was not really able to produce much of anything in the way of in the way of one
The other big effect though was that um and we have to go back to the years 1907 especially the year 1907 the again talking about langued duck langued duck uh is a very large area of wine production and it I think even to this day it at the time it was producing
Close to 40% of all the wine produced in France is one figure that I’ve seen and that region was planted with uh it gets it’s a lot of sunshine and uh it was planted with a number of different grape varieties that would uh would produce a
Lot of grapes they had high yield and they liked you know they they flourished in heat and sunshine which was more abundant than in northern France the problem was that uh starting in 1905 the you the first previous years had been bad but from 1905 to 1907 there had been
Really good weather conditions and so langu was you know the farmers and langu were producing massive amounts of grapes and massive amounts of wine it was kind of nicknamed The Wine Lake the problem is that in and this has happened in other periods of hist indry and in other countries when Farmers overproduce
Product you know they start the value starts dropping and that was the problem in langua you had um huge Productions to where beginning in 1905 100 liters of wine was selling for about 25 Franks but over the course of the period between 05 and 07 that
Dropped to 16 Franks and by 1907 it had hit six or seven Franks per 100 liters of wine so that’s a massive reduction in value and over supply of wine and it led to a uh a wine Revolt in the langued do that closo who was uh president at the
Time he had to uh he sent in the French army to quell this uh looming rebellion and langued do and that led to a number of things one of which was that French law was amended so that if you sold wine only um wine was redefined as only being
Made from grapes which sounds pretty common sense but there was a massive amount of uh watering and uh addition of chemicals and all sorts of stuff that corrupted wine and that was a bit of a scandal so that was put to a stop so you still had this massive amount of of wine
Produced in the langued do right up until 1914 and wisely the French government said well we will buy this wine from the languo region and give it to our troops and give it to them as a daily wine ration and that did several they I think during the course of the
War I read that that the French government bought 20 million liters of wine from langu during that period And there’s some amazing photographs of French soldiers at Depot guarding just a a massive amount just you know barrels and barrels and barrels of wine next to a rail head and it’s it’s pretty
Impressive so that uh that was one of the economic reasons that the wine ration was created and the other reason of course was a belief in morale that uh that troops would be bolstered by by a little bit of alcohol we can talk about how much alcohol they were given so you
Were talking about this idea of morale and this idea that it’s very important to give the French soldiers this daily ration of wine in a December 1916 French newspaper a French doctor explained that wine was essential to French combat effectiveness and he said that wine was very hygienic that it was preferable to
All types of alcohol because it and I quote exalts the qualities of our race Good Humor tenacity and courage in contrast industrial distilled alcohol was condemned as German and it was considered the source of immoral Behavior what are your thoughts on wine as a morale and fortifying tool and did
Other countries during World War I have similar policies just with different beverages that’s a great question and it actually reminds me of a point uh that should be raised here and it relates to the felox problem to to stick with the first point the French you you have to
Look at French French Doctrine French army Doctrine and French tactical Doctrine there was a very popular in 1914 and it was it turned out to be a pretty disastrous doctrine that uh there was something called Le uh I think it’s called anyway it’s it’s the attack it’s it’s the the vious
Attack it’s the overwhelming attack and French generals really believe that against you know machine guns and artillery the the French fighting Spirit you know sort of the fighting IL would uh would carry through and so you had these French soldiers were trained instead of being defensive which that
Was one of the problems in in 1870 some you know some military theorist said well the reason we did so badly in the Franco Prussian war in 187 1871 was we were too defensive we were not we were not aggressive enough so there was this idea of attack attack always attack and that
Led in the battle what they call the battle of the Frontiers in 1914 that led to horrific French casualties you had French soldiers in these you know beautiful blue uniforms with beautiful red trousers running across Open Fields with just a rifle and a bayonet and then no artillery support not much artillery
Support and no machine gun support and they were chewed to pieces and after that initial U setback to put it mildly the idea that well we have to keep men’s Spirits we have to keep them we have to make them feel that they’re that they can win these attacks and that’s
Probably at the same time that wine started to be issued there there had been P there had been periods in the past where small amounts of wine were given to uh troops overseas and Colonial possessions but starting in 1914 you know this idea of of building morale
They were given um they were given I think it was like 25 25 citers of wine which if my math is a little correct it’s like about seven or eight ounces it’s it’s it’s about a quart that’s a quarter of a bottle of wine basically
And uh the idea was that by by giving them uh the soldiers this little bit of wine on a daily basis that it would lift their spirits and keep their morale high and then going throughout the War uh by 1916 it escalated to 50 cers or half a
Bottle of wine and towards the end of 1917 1918 they would be GI they would be giving them 75 Mill 75 centers or a full bottle of wine because a full bottle of wine is 750 milliliters so that’s you know a substanti but that’s for the day
But a bottle a day and you’re thinking that’s a lot of wine for for anybody anybody who’s had a bottle of wine over the course of a day uh knows that it um depending on how you stagger it uh you know it doesn’t have that much of effect
On you possibly but you know if you if you are going through it quickly obviously it’s going to affect you the one thing I would say about this though that you have to understand that the wine they were being given was low in alcohol it was described in there’s a
Great book The Oxford companion to wine and they talk about the wines were being made you know right up to World War I in the languid do region it was described as pale pale weak uh they didn’t say insipid but they might as well have done
So it was a very light pale red wine and it only had about 8 to n% alcohol which if you compare it to uh wines today from almost any region in France or even the US wine what they call it alcohol by volume uh the ABV for wine has been
Rising steadily you know when I was first being presented with wine as a teenager and a young adult you know the average ABV for French wine was probably like 12% 12.5% which is a big jump up from 8% today you’re seeing a lot of French wine at 13 and a half 14% ABV
Because you you’re having warmer Summers you know warmer climates so the soldiers were being given this this wine as as a morale booster but there there is sort of a a myth especially also with with the British that some of these soldiers were lurching across the battlefield
Drunk you know or that they were a little bit intoxicated when they were making these attacks which is unfair and not true now maybe if you go further to the you know behind the lines you know miles from the front you might have some people who were drinking excessively but
Um the average soldier in the trenches especially the average French soldier you know they were drinking this this relatively lowquality low alcohol wine but what they did they also took Brandy to mix in brandy with the wine to give it more of a kick and to give it more
Flavor which also brings us to an interesting point when you when you made that quote from the from the doctor about you know distilled spirits being evil foreign German uh because of felox starting in the 1880s the reduction of wine for the average person was pretty
Severe and that led to the rise of consumption of distilled alcohols in France right up into the first world war and of course there was Brandy and conac conac as a for of Brandy it’s very Brandy was very popular but absent also had a huge rise right up to the
Beginning of the first world war and it was only in I think August of 1914 that absin was banned uh from France you couldn’t you couldn’t produce it you couldn’t drink it because it had it had the element wormwood in it which was considered dangerous because it possibly
Give you hallucinogenic effects so that that interest that quote is very interesting because it’s um if you step back and look at the background you know it’s clearly they’re trying to this this doctor was trying to sort of demonize and reduce the return to um distilled Spirits I don’t know the distilled
Spirits are in inherently German because the Germans to answer the second part of your question I mean the Germans yes they drank beer they had schnaps which is a is a a distilled liquor and but they also had their own uh wines because the um Germany had the the Rin Valley
Which produced a a lot of lovely ones they were usually white and they were lower in alcohol you know 10% and they also still owned elas Lorraine and Elsas makes a lot of really beautiful wines again primarily white and slightly lower in alcohol the British did not of course
They didn’t have Vineyards at the time but one thing they had immense access to was the Caribbean and all the rum that was produced in the in the Caribbean area the Caribbean area and the Royal Navy had been issuing a daily rum ration to its its Fleet going back to
1740 so it didn’t seem like a great leap to issue rum to British troops to give them a morale boost and to give them sort of uh inspiration to fight and that was issued now there was a difference because this rum was very strong it was
54% ABV or 95 you know 95 proof and uh but they were given small amounts they were given uh usually troops were given uh what was called a a quarter a quarter Gill it’s spelled g i l but I believe it’s pronounced Jill uh which is about
One and a half ounces of rum and that was rationed out pretty carefully it was usually issued by a sergeant and often overseen by an officer to make sure that there wasn’t too much of a poor and they came in these these cool uh uh sort of
Earth andwar jars that were tan and brown they were you know 10 Brown jars and they were stamped with u SRD anyway it was issued to the Troops uh at St to in the morning and St to in the evening when they expect an attack either in the morning or in the evening
And there’s lots of wonderful photographs of large groups of of British soldiers and also Commonwealth soldiers they have these you see them in in old war movies too they have this white steel or steel and enamel mug or tin and enamel mug and they’re all holding those and they’re next to a
Great big barrel of rum and they all have a big smile on their face if you go to the Imperial War Museum’s uh website you know where they have that you you can search their archives you can search their photograph collection and you can find all sorts of wonderful photographs
Of uh soldiers British soldiers in France drinking rum and drinking wine too the American Army from what I’ve read uh did not have any official alcohol ration it was sort of frowned upon but that didn’t mean that that American soldiers you know the a couldn’t get access to alcohol because
There were numerous places where they could buy it in little bars and cens and French farmers who produced wine would be happy to sell them as much wine as they could drink but there was no official uh there was no official alcohol ration that I’ve ever seen or
Read about I imagine the only American soldiers that possibly got a wine ration were African-American troops fighting under French command that’s a field that really needs to be EXP explored more because people are just now beginning to you know study how how the how African-American troops fought with the
FR I mean there’s there’s some research on it but not the question is it probably would come down to the Commander in the field you know if if the regimental Commander or the unit Commander would allow his troops to have alcohol if the French said well you know
You’re fighting with us but you know we’re going to give you one my guess is probably my semi-educated guess is probably that most commanders would probably stick to US Army Doctrine and say no thank you on the issuance of wine to their troops but that’s an interesting that’s an interesting
Question to pursue in 1917 the French army is exhausted and there are some very serious mutinies I’ve heard it suggested by some historians that these mutinies were triggered by wine consumption or alternatively by a lack of wine I tend to think that blaming these mutinies on wine in one way or
Another really ignores the major problems that the French army was facing and had been facing for years but then again wine is very important to the French and obviously by 1917 it’s a big part of the solders daily life so what are your thoughts on this you know I I
Looked at that issue and I believe and there’s a lot of good research on this that the mutinies are pretty directly tied to the failed Nel offensive of 1970 particularly the attack on the shadam uh Salient uh because they followed almost immediately after that yeah there were
There were some Supply problems in 1917 but that had been that had been a problem throughout the war because to get wine to the front and of course you had to give you know you had to give attention to food artillery shells ammunition all these other tools of War
But uh you could take one from one point to another by train but at a certain point you reached the train depot and then you had to unload the wine and the French army was not filled with cars trucks any sort of mechanical transport and even HSE drawn transport was usually
Saved for things like Medical Supply wagons artillery other other Essentials so there was some problem of getting getting wine to the front but that was all throughout the war you know the demand demand always exceeded the rate of Supply but again you have to look at
Nel and and his role in it because he uh he made his name at Verdon and by developing some tactics using artillery and you know people he was also quite a charmer apparently and he uh he spoke fluent English and so he which was unusual among his colleagues in the
French army and uh so he was able to charm at one point he was able to charm the British IND into thinking okay well you know maybe he’s on to something maybe he’s got the secret to how to win this war because of his what he had done
At ver done the 1917 uh attacks that nille directed were disastrous and that is what led to the Mutiny uh his his prior ability to charm charm the British and and to convince his fellow French officers that he held this key or this secret to how to win the war was badly
Shown up and the casualties were Ric there so that led to I think something like 48 to 50% of of French units mutinied but when we you we say it was a mutiny it wasn’t an outright Rebellion they did not the troops did not refuse orders they didn’t especially the troops
In the trenches you know it was more like that classic French maybe not an invention but something they’ve they’ve tuned to Perfection which is the labor strike it was very much a a French labor strike if the Germans the understand was if the Germans would attack the F then
These troops would would defend but they wouldn’t they wouldn’t go on offensives if they were ordered to leave the trenches and attack the Germans they just simply refused to do so and it was very widespread and it was a very dark moment for the French army and fortunately the Germans were not as
Aware of it as they could have been they didn’t realize you know the extent of this this Mutiny so I put much more faith in in Nel say if why why would the Mutiny have occurred in 1917 and not 1916 or 1915 when there were other temporary shortages of supply and French
Troops were being asked to make attacks especially in Verdan in 1916 which was a particularly horrific and brutal battle and I believe over over a million men uh were were killed when you combine German and French casualties in that battle it was over a million men were lost in the
Course of months let’s focus focus on the Champagne region for just a little bit obviously that area is the source of champagne one of the world’s most popular wines but historically the region has been a Battleground for thousands of years World War I however is considered champagne’s darkest hour
Talk to us a little bit more about what is happening on the ground there during most of the war unfortunately because of its location between Germany and France every time there’s a war between Germany and France uh that was that was the road that was the path it was the easiest
Path to take to attack each other I mean it goes back to I think 451 ad the Battle of Shalom uh so it’s it’s been a battlegr for many many years in the beginning of World War One the Germans attack in August and they’re they’re
Halted at the M River due to the the battle of the M which was sort of a turning point that that really was that the German defeat at the mar stopped their their impetus and Ena the French to to do what they couldn’t do in World
War II which was to have time to regroup and and rebuild their armies and prevent the Germans marching to Paris the German Advance was Haled at at the mar and it was actually right outside the the battle line stopped right outside U their two important there two major
Towns in uh in Champagne one is e and the other is and the the Germans were stopped right at the edge of the city of La and uh they were busy they actually did a great deal of damage to the beautiful medieval Cathedral that’s in and uh they um and that’s where the
Batalon stayed for most of the war and the digging of trenches and constant shelling destroyed as I think I mentioned before something like 40% if I haven’t mentioned before 40% of uh champagne Vineyards were either destroyed or you know torn up by trenches or were inaccessible to uh the
French and one of the sort of ironies if not an irony is that um the the 1914 vintage was one of the best vintages that champagne had had uh it was probably one of the best vintages in the entire century and uh it’s still it’s still regarded I once from personal
Story in 2015 I was in London and um visiting some friends and just traveling and I went into uh there’s a hotel in London the Kat hotel and it has the Cobra bar which is a wonderful bar and they had on their wine list they had a
Bottle of 1914 pole re uh and I just saw that I said wow and uh I was asking the bartender about it and he said I said has anyone had it lady I said oh someone had it just last week we still have some war and it was delicious and and he said
To me is the gentleman interested in this bottel and I said the gentleman is interested but what is the price and I think he told me I it was5 or 6,000 you know roughly that might have been about seven or 8,000 at the time and fortunately I for just a few seconds I
Thought about H what would that be like but I came back to Earth and decided no the $7,000 for a bottle of champagne seemed a bit excessive to me but uh it’s it’s good to know it’s still out there and it’s apparently delicious and just fun fact Paul R was actually um Winston
One of Winston Churchill’s favorite Champagnes he was a big champagne fan but Paul R was first in his heart and he had a very uh special relation he had a special relationship with the PO R family he met uh the the Widow of the current owner of Po R in
1944 in Paris at a lunch at the British Embassy and was just Smitten by her because she was this very beautiful elegant woman and he kept a correspondence with her for the rest of her life and ultimately po R in in the early 80s they took their their top
Champagne but they called it tet they like the highest uh their highest and best champagne and they they created uh kuv Sir Winston Churchill Winston Churchill blend and it’s it’s a remarkable remarkably good it’s become getting up there in price but if you ever have a chance to have some find a
Way to do so anyway back to the war it turns out that um uh Maurice po a 1914 was the mayor of EP small surprise and he uh he did a number of amazing things to try and help save champagne during the 1914 Harvest all the men had already
Been called up for Duty so there was no one no one trained to pick the grapes and he he basically rallied he organized the women and the children of EP and that part of of champagne to go out and pick the grapes in September while this
Was right after the battle of the mar had ended but at any moment the Germans could have made another attack and you could he you could hear the shell fire apparently in the distance of you know the artillery duels between the French artillery and the German artillery while
These women and children were busy harvesting uh the 1914 vintage which is amazing to me the other interesting thing he did was um all the banks had shut down in that part of France and there was a a currency supply problem so he sort of authorized local money to be
Made they they printed sort of champagne Franks if you will and there’s some of those you can find them online you can see pictures of them online and so that way he was able to temporarily prevent the collapse of the economy but uh it was a very it was apparently incredibly
Difficult time in Champagne because you had uh you had women in children having to do the work of the men who were fighting at the front but they managed to to carry it off the 1915 they actually had a very good vintage to but it was much smaller then 16 and 17 and
18 you know from the research I’ve seen there’s a very good book on champagne and champagne vintages apparently there’s there very little records and apparently nothing was done they just did not try and harvest what was left of The Vineyards uh during that later part of the war um interesting another
Interesting thing is the champagne like the langued do they had their pre-war Revolution over uh over declining prices and some some sort of underhanded practices in in the n in 1911 there were a bunch there were champagne importers and expor champagne exporters who were who were busy using grapes from outside
Champagne to produce this sort of like fake champagne and so the local champagne Growers kind of led a read rebellion and the French army was sent in once again something like 400,000 troops apparently were were sent into champagne just to keep the peace and and uh that ended in a settlement uh with
The champagne Growers where it was made explicit that only grapes from Champagne could go into champagne you know as opposed to the past where you could adulterate and cheat and then bring in grapes from other parts of of champagne which was producing inferior quality champagne and then um fun fact for your
Listeners uh champagne is actually produced from uh three different grapes two of which are red uh it’s p Noir P the other red grape and then chardonay and uh you have to go back and look at how important champagne was worldwide you said was very popular it was
Intensely popular in uh in Imperial Russia so much so that the two leading houses that sort of were in contention for you know the champagne Market in Russia were V Cleo and Lou rodor and in a matter of fact Louis rodor was eventually named the official champagne
Of the of the Romanov Dynasty in the ranov house and in 18 think it was 1876 uh if you’re familiar with Christal uh that’s their T Christal was was made in honor of Alexander II the the future Zar or no he was the zor at the time he
Was the zor at the time he unfortunately uh was was killed in Anarchist attack a bomb attack in 1881 but at least for a few years he had access to Kristal and that was another thing is at the end of the war just as as champagne was sort of
Recovering from from German occupation two things happened that damaged it in the post War Market first was the Russian Revolution because with the fall of of the Zar and and the establishment in the Civil War and then ultimately the Soviet Union uh that was a massive loss
To uh champagne from that market the other Market that was lost was the us because of prohibition and you know there have been a growing export of champagne to the United States especially during what they call the Gilded Age when when you know people fell in love with champagne in the US
But eventually it did recover but that you everything from 1914 to about 1922 were were tough times for champagne but the unintended result or the the result the sa was that more and more champagne was being consumed inside of France instead of being exported to uh Russia and the United States so that
That led to an increase of of sales in the United States I’m sorry in France now when World War II begins French wiers and restaurants work very hard to hide the finest French wines from the Germans and we often talk about noty luding of cultural objects such as art
But people tend to forget that things like wine were also valuable bits of cultural property is there a concerted effort by the Germans to steal French wine during World War I like they try to do later on in World War II fortunately not really and there’s a couple of
Reasons for this I mean they didn’t you know they Imperial Germany did not have uh Vine furas like the the Nazis did going around looking you know because they did have these they created these wine fures to go look for wine Germany in the first world war did not occupy
The substantial portions of France all all the the most famous and you know all the all the regions we’ve talked about Bordeaux burgundy uh even the langua do were outside of German occupation so the ability to loot wine was much much less no office there was no directed policy
Of searching out to loot Fine Wines champagne of course to the extent that the German Army held certain Chateau in champagne and they had you know they had access to certain um uh houses that produced champagne certainly they they would come Ander that champagne as but
That was a that was a tradition going back to the Romans you know you would loot whatever City you captured and so there probably was some lowlevel disorganized l but it wasn’t uh it wasn’t the same sort of kleptocracy that the Third Reich was any final thoughts I
Would just like to uh thank a friend of mine who helped me get some research material through uh tulan University so uh my friend Professor Michael Griffith at tan thank you very much for your help I would like if people were really interested in this I’d like to give you
Just like a brief Greatest Hits reading list that I think people would enjoy some of this is very good and some of it’s easily available there’s a good book by Theodor zeldon and it’s a multi uh multivolume history of France from called France and then each sub volume
Has its own subtitle but it’s basically France 1848 to 1945 it’s uh put out by Oxford univ University press it may be a little hard to find but you could probably find them used copies and there’s at least um one sub chapter that is really fascinating about the changes
In French cooking and in French drinking in the period from 1848 to 1945 and it’s it’s a lot it’s a fun read and it’s well written I was also helded by Michael broadband’s great vintage wine book which covers his own personal tasting of major vintage from the 19th century up
To 1991 Michael Broadband is or was a uh he’s a master of wine which is one of the highest levels of wine study you can reach the program that I’m in now ultimately culminates in a diploma at the fourth level but then once you get that diploma you’re then eligible to try
And become a master of but it is an incredibly grueling course and lot of very difficult exams and there’s only about 320 to 325 matches of one in the world so that just gives you an idea out of billions of people only 3 25 people have managed to accomplish that feat
There’s a very good book Charles Curtis’s vintage champagne 1899 to 2019 which gives a lot of good background what was going in champagne on in champagne at the time especially esally the little sub chapter that talks about World War I oh and there’s a very good
Online uh segment it’s 12 Parts it’s at believe at drinks business.com and it’s wine and War and it discusses in in lesser detail most of the subjects we’ve touched upon there’s a whole there’s a whole segment on on France and um and P
In World War I there is a a page on the British and their rum rash in World War I but it goes back to you know the 19th century medieval times and it’s it’s a it’s pretty well written and it’s very accessible it’s not super technical and
It’s it’s a fun read this was very enjoyable and I hope that uh your listeners learned at least something interesting today or had some fun listening to this well thank you very much for joining us I know I learned a lot that was fascinating thank you for listening if
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