They saw the story. They tell the story. Meet Don and Petie Kladstrup

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It's here. It's now

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it's wine talks with Paul

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K. Hey, welcome to wine talks with Paul Kay. And we are

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in studio today in beautiful southern California about to have a conversation with

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Dom and Petty. Is it Petty or Petey? Petey.

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Petey Clad Strub, authors, co authors of the book

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wine and war. And this incredible conversation. Introductions in just

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a second. Wine talks, of course. Available I heart radio, Pandora,

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Spotify, wherever you hang out for your podcasting. And now,

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sporting the Napa and Sonoma and Bordeaux series of

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wines. Hey, have a listen.

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Actually, after this podcast, I'm going to record a rant.

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I'm going to rant about what's going on in the marketplace of wine.

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We're going to talk specifically about wink, and that'll be coming out

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shortly. So have a listen to that. I think you'll find it fabulous. But let's

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have the introductions of Don and Petey Cladstrup. Welcome to

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the show. Thank you. Thanks. Pleasure to be here.

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You know, as we, as I told you off camera, you know, I, I've been

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reading your book, wine and war, and it hit me that we've got

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to tell these stories to a younger audience, from a contemporary audience to a

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wine audience that doesn't know these stories. And here I am looking for

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you all over the Internet. Nothing. Can't find a thing. But thank

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goodness your daughter Regan is available through all the typical

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channels. I guess it's a generational

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thing. Yeah, it could be. And so you're currently in Philadelphia right

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now, right? We are, yep. Visiting

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Regan and, well, doing a few other

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things. And I read that you live in Paris.

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That's right. We've lived there for, golly, more than four decades now.

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Yeah. We arrived in France because of my job. I was

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a news correspondent, television correspondent for

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CB's and ABC News back in the day. Wow.

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You know, after a number of years in the network news

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racket, we decided to change

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our lives, do something, reinvent ourselves. That's fabulous. Write books,

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maybe. And turns out that's what we did.

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Fabulous books. And we're going to talk about wine of war right now. We're

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going to talk about champagne and the other ones you've written. But let me just

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ask, when was this that you picked up and left?

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Picked up and left the network? No,

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we moved to Paris in 1978.

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Wow. This is fabulous.

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I'm sure you're familiar with the. George Tabor's name. George

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Tabor, the author of the Judgment of Paris? Sure. Yeah.

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And he was in Paris in 1976 as a correspondent

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for Time magazine. Right. And so here's this group

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of Americans that have gone to Paris, stayed in Paris, and done

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amazing things and reported great stories

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along the same lines. But you just fell in love with the town and the

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city, and you just said, city of lights, and this is what we're gonna do.

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Yeah. Well, I think we just got very comfortable there.

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Our children grew up there, and after a while, it

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started to feel like home. Yeah. And it was a stimulating area, a

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place that was entirely new to us. The

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food, the wine, certainly we'd never

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tasted things like we were tasting back then. And

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suddenly it was really a revelation.

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I suppose. Steven Spiria's place, Cobb de Madeleine, was still around.

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He probably visited there lots of times. Yeah. We

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were very lucky and fortunate to get to know most of those people,

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and occasionally we still see some of them. It's a great

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network of. It's almost a family of the folks

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that work there. And producer Patricia Gastaut was going to be on the show. I

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haven't heard from her lately, but

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what an amazing time for wine in the world, let alone the

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Americans winning the judgment of Paris. But

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it was a different time then, wasn't it? It really was.

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And we missed those times. I bet those times

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were very personal. Stephen Spurrier, he was a good

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friend. David cobbled

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Patricia, who you just mentioned, Gallagher,

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James Lawther. Yeah, yeah. But, you

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know, it introduced us to the

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world of wine in a way that I think would be very difficult today.

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Again, the personal touch. Have you

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tried this bottle? You know, we just opened it. Would you like a taste?

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And, you know, sure enough,

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a whole new experience that's a little bit about

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kind of how we got turned on to the whole. The whole picture.

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I wonder, you know, my dad's wine shop in the seventies was very much like

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that. In fact, Patricia's sister was a regular in the

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store and had told my father, my sister's coming to

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America to go select wines for this idea that she

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has with Steven Spurrier. And it's like this. You almost feel like family,

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because Patricia will tell you that her sister has fond memories of my

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dad's relationship. And it was a different time.

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People wanted to talk about wine. You'd come into a store.

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Wine was new for Americans, so it needed a

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conversation, it needed a taste, it needed those things. And now we've got

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social media and we've got influencers in there, you know, dramatic

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video of swirling the glass. But until you and I get to sit

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and have a glass and stimulate that conversation. It's different.

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Absolutely it is. And if perhaps you saw Eric Asimov's

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column today in the New York Times, you'll know that

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it definitely was another time, and that to reach the younger

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market now is a very, very difficult thing. You know, I'm going to have to

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read that. I didn't know it came out. He was slated to be back on

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the show, and I had just sent him an email. But I. About the rant

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I'm going to do after we're done with this. Well, let's talk about wine and

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war, because I had done a quick sizzle reel on an episode that

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I wanted to produce about the four wineries absconded by

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the Azerbaijan's during the armenian war. And I know two of the

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families. Well, in the cultural upheaval that this created, the

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people that affected the wine itself, of course, the

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cultural contribution of the wines from Artsakh to the

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armenian community is gone. It's disrupted, it's finished. And

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then I started, I thought, I'm going to Google this term wine and war, just

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to see what it's about. And up comes your book. So tell me about

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the. Here you are in Paris. What was the

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idea behind the book? Why did it stimulate your intellect?

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Well, I think it hit us something like, it hit you that

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we weren't really interested in talking about sniffing

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and sipping, but we were more interested in talking about

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and learning about how it all came about, about the culture

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and certainly about the people who made wine. And there was

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one other factor that entered in. We had a

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house in Normandy, not far from the landing beaches. Wow. So

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the world War two was very close to us all the

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time. The idea that we were living right on

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its, what should I say? In its, in its

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shadow, made us think about world war two a great

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deal. And then the real key thing

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were some of the experiences Don had

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when interviewing people for network news. Those

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people led us to start really

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pursuing the topic, particularly some time spent with Gaston

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Youette in Nauvoovre in the Loire valley.

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All began there. And it began with a guessing game.

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Well, he had invited us down to visit

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him, and we arrived at his home in

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Vouveray, and he brought us into the

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office, told us to sit down. We chatted for a few

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minutes. Then all of a sudden, he got out of his chair and disappeared from

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the room. And Petey and I looked at each other and he said, what's going

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on here? A few minutes later, he returned with three

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glasses and an unlabeled bottle of wine that

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looked very old. But then he poured,

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and out of the bottle came this golden liquid

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that, well, whose bouquet just filled the room

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with the scent of apricots and

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honey and peaches. And we thought, oh, my gosh, what are we

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going to be drinking here? And Hewitt said, go ahead, taste it.

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Tell me what you think. Tell me when you think it was made.

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And so I went down.

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1970. No shaking the

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head, smile on his face. I went back the

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1960s, the 1950s. Each time

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I guessed the smile on his face would grow

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bigger. He would shake his head and indicate, try

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again. So finally I said, all right,

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1953. Uh uh. Biggest grin of

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all. I said, I give up. When was it made? And

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he said, 1947. Wow. Wow.

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Greatest wine. It was a sweet wine, but he said, it's the

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greatest wine I have ever made. And I looked at it

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and I said, you know, have you ever tasted a

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wine better than this? And all of a sudden, the smile on his face

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disappeared and he grew very,

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I don't know, almost sad. And he finally said,

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only once. It was when I was a prisoner of war in

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Germany. I had a little bit of

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wine, just a thimbleful. It was nothing special,

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but it was the only wine I tasted during five years of

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captivity, and I would never forget it.

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That's phenomenal. I think that was the moment when Petey and I looked, you

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know, decided, you know, how many other stories are there out

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there like this? And as we discovered, there

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were a lot of them, and that's how wine and war began.

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Well, night Chen Blanc. Right? A vouvre

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which can make fabulous dessert wines and fabulous still wines and fabulous

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sparkling wines. And here he gets to share with you, which is at

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that point, what, 30 years old, 35 years old. About what? This

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is 2000. When would this happen? Yes, in

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2000. I would just. Yeah, about then. Wow. So

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this is like 43 year old wine, or 53.

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But it certainly didn't taste it. It was out of this world, really.

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It was so fresh, it tasted so young

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that you might have thought this was made yesterday.

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You know, that this is the part of wine

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that stimulates the intellect, and that is, how does that

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happen? And what is this connection to the human

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soul that makes you sit on this camera

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and bestow the virtues of this wine that was already 53

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years old? And it can't be defined, but it happens.

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No, you're right. It can't be defined. One of the

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things Hewitt said to us at that point was, you know,

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this was the taste of home. This is

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what kept me going. That is the best

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definition of wine should be a sense of time and

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place that I've ever heard. I mean, really? And here

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he is in prison and is keeping him alive, and he's so talked

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about how he became a prison of war at that time.

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Yeah, yeah. He was a captain

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in the french army at the time and was leading

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a troop after the initial

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invasion of France in the early 19, in what, mid

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1940s, mid 1940. They

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were being chased by a

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Germane, I guess, division towards the

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coast, towards the English Channel. And it became

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apparent that they were not going to

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survive or they weren't going to make it. So they

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stopped not too far from the coast. I think it was close to

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Dieppe, and they were on kind of a rise in the

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land, and they had with them, of course, a french flag.

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So Hewittley said, take the flag down. And he cut the

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flag into small pieces and gave one piece to

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each of the members of his troop, and he said, so no

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matter what happens, we have this with us. And the

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Germans arrived shortly thereafter, and he was marched

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with, I think, finally a group of close to, what,

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500 officers that they had already

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stopped and arrested and march back to

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Silesia in, well, what would

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now be Poland and where he was in camp then for. In a

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prison of war camp for five years. This was during the big

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evacuation, you know, the British. Dunkirk.

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Dunkirk. Dunkirk. Trying to get into a

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boat, get off to England. There weren't enough

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boats. And Hewitt realized this at the very

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beginning. And when the final boat left, even though somebody

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called back to him and said, you know, well, return, we'll get you out of

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there, he says, it never happened. We were completely

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abandoned. Wow. Also considered Hitler's greatest mistake

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during the war by not pursuing the British

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into the ocean. But how did you

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find Hewitt? And what was the name of his winery? It was a family winery.

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And then I. How did you find him to be the first? Sort of.

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It was. It is indeed, or it was indeed a family winery.

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The place that they bought first that his father

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bought at the end of World War one. His father was gassed in World

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War one, and his health was very bad, so he was advised to move to

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the country. And he bought this small wine

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property. Olieu wasn't the first. Yeah. Called

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Oleu. Yeah. Place. And from

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00:14:27,770 --> 00:14:31,458
that, Hewitt expanded it through the years. I

237
00:14:31,474 --> 00:14:34,510
believe his father bought the rhino in, what, 1919?

238
00:14:35,850 --> 00:14:39,522
And then they've added to it, became a

239
00:14:39,546 --> 00:14:42,586
much larger operation. Yeah. Speaking of

240
00:14:42,618 --> 00:14:46,338
1919, when it was founded, we have a

241
00:14:46,354 --> 00:14:50,122
bottle of wine from that estate. Whoa. Date. We haven't tasted

242
00:14:50,146 --> 00:14:53,706
it yet. We're waiting for it to

243
00:14:53,778 --> 00:14:57,442
evolve. Yeah, yeah, we'll make sure. Wait for it to

244
00:14:57,466 --> 00:15:01,182
come around, maybe. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Waiting for us

245
00:15:01,206 --> 00:15:04,670
to come around. That's very

246
00:15:04,710 --> 00:15:08,270
funny. So the Germans come in in

247
00:15:08,350 --> 00:15:12,010
1940, right? And they come in and

248
00:15:12,630 --> 00:15:16,350
they basically split France in half, so to speak. I don't know

249
00:15:16,350 --> 00:15:19,966
if geographically it's actually in half, but. And create the Vichy

250
00:15:20,038 --> 00:15:23,542
government, which is sort of the French trying to manage themselves, but not

251
00:15:23,566 --> 00:15:27,032
really. And the German occupied side. And I wrote

252
00:15:27,056 --> 00:15:30,816
it, I put in, we put a map in my little sizzle reel about

253
00:15:30,848 --> 00:15:34,296
this war and wine thing where, you know, looks

254
00:15:34,328 --> 00:15:38,016
like they went right down the middle of Bordeaux, maybe left bank, right

255
00:15:38,048 --> 00:15:41,576
bank kind of thing. And left, of course, the great chateau for themselves

256
00:15:41,648 --> 00:15:44,700
and maybe the lesser ones.

257
00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:51,066
The way the France was split, all of the best wine of the

258
00:15:51,098 --> 00:15:54,930
time was in the german occupied zone. This

259
00:15:54,970 --> 00:15:58,554
almost seems deliberate, doesnt it was. Oh, it was very

260
00:15:58,602 --> 00:16:02,298
deliberate, yeah. And, you know, the thing about the invasion

261
00:16:02,434 --> 00:16:05,802
is that it happened so fast that there was no

262
00:16:05,866 --> 00:16:09,550
blueprint for any organized occupation.

263
00:16:10,170 --> 00:16:13,434
Well, thats interesting, you know, I mean, what,

264
00:16:13,562 --> 00:16:17,402
on May 9, 1940, Hitler, Hitler speaks to

265
00:16:17,426 --> 00:16:20,750
his generals and everybody else and says, gentlemen,

266
00:16:21,290 --> 00:16:24,890
you are about to witness the most famous victory in

267
00:16:24,930 --> 00:16:28,682
history. A day later, german troops pour across the

268
00:16:28,706 --> 00:16:32,186
border into France, and less than a month later,

269
00:16:32,298 --> 00:16:36,090
theyre marching down the Champs Elysees fast. Even

270
00:16:36,130 --> 00:16:39,778
the Germans supposedly were surprised, but. The result

271
00:16:39,874 --> 00:16:43,310
was utter chaos. I mean, you had

272
00:16:43,770 --> 00:16:46,802
cellars pillaged of their wines,

273
00:16:46,986 --> 00:16:50,754
chateaus taken over, places like Chateau

274
00:16:50,802 --> 00:16:54,402
Mouton Rothschild, having soldiers

275
00:16:54,466 --> 00:16:57,866
inside the chateau, taking potshots

276
00:16:58,018 --> 00:17:01,738
at various pictures that were hanging on the wall, and youve got

277
00:17:01,834 --> 00:17:05,070
the poor cook running around trying to take them down

278
00:17:05,610 --> 00:17:09,410
before they were all destroyed. So, so many

279
00:17:09,450 --> 00:17:13,030
things were happening at once that, as we say, utter chaos.

280
00:17:13,460 --> 00:17:16,960
You know, through your book so far, it seems like there were two,

281
00:17:17,460 --> 00:17:21,220
two sets of rules for the Germans. There was a compassionate

282
00:17:21,260 --> 00:17:25,028
set of players, and there was the, the gorings of the world that this, you

283
00:17:25,044 --> 00:17:28,756
know, pillage and plunder as much as they could. And you, you open the

284
00:17:28,788 --> 00:17:32,000
book with this fabulous paragraph, which is when

285
00:17:32,500 --> 00:17:35,960
one of the lieutenants or generals opens Hitler's cave.

286
00:17:36,540 --> 00:17:40,116
And, of course, everybody knows Hitler really didn't drink much. And here are, what,

287
00:17:40,148 --> 00:17:42,960
100,000 bottles of some of the best things ever made.

288
00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:47,128
Absolutely. And it was Bernhard de Nolencourt who

289
00:17:47,224 --> 00:17:50,688
became head and really developed to the

290
00:17:50,704 --> 00:17:53,940
point, Laurent Perrier Champagne.

291
00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:58,120
He was the man who really opened up

292
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:01,672
Hitler's car at the top of the Bertescaden at

293
00:18:01,696 --> 00:18:05,000
Eagles Nest and was able

294
00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:08,680
to recoup quite a bit of wine. But

295
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,486
he also had seen these very many of

296
00:18:12,518 --> 00:18:16,310
these very wines taken out of champagne as what

297
00:18:16,350 --> 00:18:19,950
he was a teenager working. He was working at one champagne

298
00:18:19,990 --> 00:18:23,518
house when the Germans came rolling into the village and began.

299
00:18:23,654 --> 00:18:27,054
It was. Began emptying the bottles from salon.

300
00:18:27,142 --> 00:18:30,718
Yeah, yeah. And it's amazing because he

301
00:18:30,734 --> 00:18:34,438
said, when I went up to Eagle's nest and I opened

302
00:18:34,454 --> 00:18:38,232
the door, I saw the very bottles that had

303
00:18:38,256 --> 00:18:41,760
been absconded. I mean, there were hundreds of

304
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:45,376
thousands of bottles there of the very best wines that

305
00:18:45,408 --> 00:18:47,540
France ever made. But

306
00:18:49,120 --> 00:18:52,560
he specifically pointed out, he said, you know, I saw those three

307
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:56,380
bottles. Yeah. Talk about full circle,

308
00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:01,320
really. So what is it? What is it about

309
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:04,794
wine? And maybe there's no definition, but what is it about

310
00:19:04,842 --> 00:19:08,522
wine that I just witnessed in the current times

311
00:19:08,586 --> 00:19:12,402
in 2022, the stealing of wineries and the

312
00:19:12,426 --> 00:19:16,242
equipment and the labeling and the fermentation vats and the shiners

313
00:19:16,266 --> 00:19:20,106
and whatever there was that had happened again in World

314
00:19:20,138 --> 00:19:23,786
War Two or happened prior and probably happened prior to that.

315
00:19:23,858 --> 00:19:27,698
I think even during the French Revolution, some

316
00:19:27,714 --> 00:19:31,430
of the regiments came and tried to raid Madame Clicots place.

317
00:19:32,270 --> 00:19:36,094
What is it? Is this just. Well, let me ask you another question.

318
00:19:36,142 --> 00:19:39,822
How did Goring know that the 18, whatever, 67 or 97, was this

319
00:19:39,846 --> 00:19:42,810
incredible vintage from Bordeaux? How do we know all this already?

320
00:19:44,190 --> 00:19:47,942
Well, you know, first of all, nobody

321
00:19:48,086 --> 00:19:51,570
ever heard Goering say the word enough

322
00:19:53,510 --> 00:19:57,190
anything. And he would have, I suppose, had

323
00:19:57,230 --> 00:20:00,240
somebody tell him what the best wines were.

324
00:20:01,180 --> 00:20:04,916
In any case, when we were working on wine and war, we talked

325
00:20:04,948 --> 00:20:08,732
to an American who was at that time the only american to

326
00:20:08,756 --> 00:20:12,372
be making champagne in champagne, and he had been

327
00:20:12,396 --> 00:20:15,160
a soldier in Patton's army,

328
00:20:15,780 --> 00:20:19,612
and he said, what is undoubtedly

329
00:20:19,676 --> 00:20:23,092
the truth about every single winery that's been

330
00:20:23,116 --> 00:20:26,902
pillaged during any war? And he. With what he

331
00:20:26,926 --> 00:20:30,526
said was soldiers drink. Wow. Well,

332
00:20:30,558 --> 00:20:34,358
that's. That pretty nets. That pretty much nets it out, now, doesn't it? So it's

333
00:20:34,374 --> 00:20:38,182
just. Well, there was, there, you do tell

334
00:20:38,206 --> 00:20:42,022
the story in the book about, you know, wine being

335
00:20:42,086 --> 00:20:45,930
part of almost the, you know, what would have been the Red Cross care package

336
00:20:46,430 --> 00:20:50,176
for. For french soldiers. It was part of sort of the diet,

337
00:20:50,248 --> 00:20:54,032
was it not? It was sort of a

338
00:20:54,056 --> 00:20:57,640
daily routine. I mean, not just World War two, but

339
00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:01,408
World War one. You know, the soldiers were there and they were expecting their.

340
00:21:01,504 --> 00:21:05,160
What, their little plant? Their pinard. Their pinard, yeah. Every

341
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,936
day, kind of a rough red wine. But, you know, it was

342
00:21:08,968 --> 00:21:12,808
essential. It was something to look forward to. I wonder if that

343
00:21:12,824 --> 00:21:16,188
would have settled the argument, if the Nazis could have helped us with that, like,

344
00:21:16,264 --> 00:21:19,520
much better Burgundy or Bordeaux. But we will get into that. So

345
00:21:21,220 --> 00:21:24,932
you know those arguments. But I didn't know, and until reading your book,

346
00:21:24,956 --> 00:21:28,588
that Burgundy was part of this. I kind of

347
00:21:28,604 --> 00:21:31,836
remember champagne being part of it, but Bordeaux obviously being a port

348
00:21:31,908 --> 00:21:35,320
city. What did they do in Bordeaux? They came in,

349
00:21:35,860 --> 00:21:39,640
they grabbed the chateau, established a port.

350
00:21:40,780 --> 00:21:44,084
Well, the port, of course, was already there, but they took

351
00:21:44,132 --> 00:21:47,794
over, and they definitely went

352
00:21:47,842 --> 00:21:50,986
after the major chateaus

353
00:21:51,098 --> 00:21:54,938
for all the bottles they could get, but they wanted all of

354
00:21:54,954 --> 00:21:58,778
it to send back to Germany. One

355
00:21:58,794 --> 00:22:02,458
of the things that, when we were writing the book, in fact, we were, what,

356
00:22:02,514 --> 00:22:06,226
halfway through when we realized the importance of the

357
00:22:06,258 --> 00:22:10,058
men who were sent to be in charge of it, what

358
00:22:10,194 --> 00:22:13,230
the people that the French called the Weinfuhrers,

359
00:22:13,970 --> 00:22:17,230
who were in charge of buying wine

360
00:22:17,610 --> 00:22:20,754
for the Reich, who were in charge

361
00:22:20,842 --> 00:22:24,642
of making sure that the shipments kept going

362
00:22:24,746 --> 00:22:28,442
back to Germany, and who, in fact, were already

363
00:22:28,506 --> 00:22:32,234
in the wine trade themselves, which was one of the great

364
00:22:32,282 --> 00:22:35,890
mistakes that the nazi leadership made, was choosing

365
00:22:35,930 --> 00:22:39,714
men from the wine industry in Germany to run the wine

366
00:22:39,762 --> 00:22:43,412
industry in France, because they were already. Friends and

367
00:22:43,476 --> 00:22:47,036
who were totally sympathetic to the french winemakers

368
00:22:47,148 --> 00:22:50,420
because they knew that the war would not go on

369
00:22:50,460 --> 00:22:54,060
forever, that the day would come when they would have to do business

370
00:22:54,140 --> 00:22:57,900
again. And as a result, they went out of their way

371
00:22:58,020 --> 00:23:01,748
to actually protect the winemakers at

372
00:23:01,764 --> 00:23:05,580
the same time slake the thirst of Hitler

373
00:23:05,740 --> 00:23:09,438
and his cronies. It was a

374
00:23:09,454 --> 00:23:13,198
very dicey game that they had to play. And dangerous.

375
00:23:13,334 --> 00:23:16,690
Yeah, absolutely. But

376
00:23:17,230 --> 00:23:19,770
as Don said, these were men,

377
00:23:20,790 --> 00:23:24,606
primarily men in the same business as the men

378
00:23:24,718 --> 00:23:27,930
in France. They had known each other for generations.

379
00:23:28,390 --> 00:23:31,934
They trained in each other's businesses. They spoke each other's

380
00:23:31,982 --> 00:23:35,568
language. They intermarried. They were godfathers and

381
00:23:35,584 --> 00:23:39,152
godmothers to each other's children. It was

382
00:23:39,336 --> 00:23:43,088
both. I guess, on paper, it probably seemed like a

383
00:23:43,104 --> 00:23:46,848
good idea. We need a wine expert to run this. Well,

384
00:23:46,984 --> 00:23:50,536
that begs a lot of questions. Right. Not to interrupt you, but

385
00:23:50,688 --> 00:23:54,016
I want to set the stage for the listeners. We have. Germans

386
00:23:54,048 --> 00:23:57,816
occupy France. They occupy certain parts of it. Certain parts are free under

387
00:23:57,848 --> 00:24:01,620
the Vichy government, but they hire or

388
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:05,848
command a certain amount of people. That was at one per

389
00:24:06,024 --> 00:24:09,632
major region. Is that the way it worked? The vine Fuhrer was one in Alsace,

390
00:24:09,696 --> 00:24:13,512
one in Bordeaux, one in Burgundy kind of thing. That's right. And one

391
00:24:13,536 --> 00:24:17,176
in champagne. One in Champagne. We talked about the chaos that

392
00:24:17,248 --> 00:24:20,768
erupted at the very beginning. The german

393
00:24:20,824 --> 00:24:24,620
leadership realized that we have to put a stop to this.

394
00:24:25,650 --> 00:24:28,430
You know, we have to impose order somehow

395
00:24:29,450 --> 00:24:33,258
because, you know, this is. The wine is the golden goose.

396
00:24:33,354 --> 00:24:36,426
I mean, at the time, you know, today, anyway, it

397
00:24:36,458 --> 00:24:40,242
represents one 6th of France's economy.

398
00:24:40,426 --> 00:24:43,794
It was even bigger then. And they realized

399
00:24:43,842 --> 00:24:47,610
that if we don't bring things to order real

400
00:24:47,650 --> 00:24:51,322
quickly, we're going to lose it all. And that's the reason that

401
00:24:51,346 --> 00:24:54,940
they reached into their own wine trade, to bring out

402
00:24:54,980 --> 00:24:58,580
people who understood wine and could put their

403
00:24:58,620 --> 00:25:02,156
hands on the best wines France had to offer and get them back to

404
00:25:02,188 --> 00:25:05,756
Germany. Preston, it seems

405
00:25:05,788 --> 00:25:09,520
like here's this guy. He's person, man or woman,

406
00:25:10,020 --> 00:25:13,372
effectively brokering the indigenous value

407
00:25:13,436 --> 00:25:17,180
of a bottle of wine from this potential region where

408
00:25:17,220 --> 00:25:19,360
champagne, Burgundy, Bordeaux, or all such.

409
00:25:21,110 --> 00:25:24,838
Let me stop you there. Not Alsace, because Alsace

410
00:25:24,974 --> 00:25:28,782
was at that time, German. Oh, German. Yeah. Okay,

411
00:25:28,846 --> 00:25:32,518
so, but the others, the dual. Personality part of the world, you

412
00:25:32,534 --> 00:25:36,238
know? Right. So they have to sort

413
00:25:36,254 --> 00:25:40,046
of walk this line between, like, as you're saying, being

414
00:25:40,078 --> 00:25:43,814
the friend, old friend of the winemakers and the families of

415
00:25:43,822 --> 00:25:47,250
those winemakers, but represent the Reich

416
00:25:48,230 --> 00:25:52,070
to the superiors to get them the things they wanted. I wonder why the

417
00:25:52,150 --> 00:25:54,534
Reich didn't just say, we're just taking it. Why didn't they just say, we're going

418
00:25:54,542 --> 00:25:56,770
to take it, we don't need this liaison.

419
00:25:58,190 --> 00:26:01,838
Well, I think in a certain way they did, because

420
00:26:01,974 --> 00:26:05,270
they set the price they paid, but they wanted to keep the business

421
00:26:05,350 --> 00:26:08,390
running, and they knew they couldn't do it themselves. They didn't have the

422
00:26:08,430 --> 00:26:12,070
manpower, they didn't have the expertise to bring in to

423
00:26:12,110 --> 00:26:15,930
run, for instance, the great chateaus of Bordeaux,

424
00:26:16,990 --> 00:26:20,250
to take care of the vineyards, etcetera. Because

425
00:26:20,870 --> 00:26:24,438
obviously the german manpower was going into the army and going

426
00:26:24,494 --> 00:26:28,326
into armaments, into furnishing the necessary

427
00:26:28,398 --> 00:26:31,958
things for the war effort. So they needed

428
00:26:32,054 --> 00:26:35,718
to keep it going because they had learned in the first

429
00:26:35,774 --> 00:26:39,622
world war that destroying it meant destroying

430
00:26:39,686 --> 00:26:42,330
a lot of income for Germany itself.

431
00:26:43,260 --> 00:26:47,052
And so to just take it would have

432
00:26:47,236 --> 00:26:51,084
made it both counter to what they were, the

433
00:26:51,132 --> 00:26:54,160
image they were trying to present as being correct

434
00:26:55,660 --> 00:26:59,372
and ruining the industry. But of course, they set the

435
00:26:59,396 --> 00:27:02,756
price and they set the exchange rate. So while

436
00:27:02,868 --> 00:27:06,652
they were very proud of the fact that they bought the wine,

437
00:27:06,716 --> 00:27:09,120
it was for a derisory amount.

438
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,136
Was there a difference between the way the vine

439
00:27:14,168 --> 00:27:17,720
fure handled Bordeaux versus Champagne

440
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,376
versus Burgundy in the way the Nazis actually

441
00:27:21,448 --> 00:27:25,144
handled those regions? As far as absconding with chateau,

442
00:27:25,192 --> 00:27:28,552
or like, they turned Chateaubriand into the

443
00:27:28,576 --> 00:27:32,216
Luftwaffe rest home? Did they work

444
00:27:32,248 --> 00:27:35,730
differently? You know, they were all. They were all essentially

445
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,890
sympathetic to the wine situation

446
00:27:39,390 --> 00:27:43,130
and to the plight that their winemaking friends

447
00:27:44,110 --> 00:27:46,810
were facing. But

448
00:27:47,710 --> 00:27:51,094
I would say the one wine fearer who was different

449
00:27:51,262 --> 00:27:54,090
was the fellow who

450
00:27:54,630 --> 00:27:58,086
conducted affairs in Champagne. Klebusch. Yeah,

451
00:27:58,118 --> 00:28:01,690
Klebisch was a lot

452
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,968
more, what should I say, army, more military

453
00:28:06,024 --> 00:28:09,512
in his approach to the situation.

454
00:28:09,616 --> 00:28:13,200
Also, he had the greatest demands put upon

455
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,020
him. The third Reich

456
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,408
leadership was asking for what clad a million and a half bottles a

457
00:28:20,424 --> 00:28:24,176
month. A month. And this caused great disruption

458
00:28:24,208 --> 00:28:27,660
in Champagne. Champagne makers went on strike

459
00:28:28,250 --> 00:28:31,626
for the first time in history there, and it took

460
00:28:31,698 --> 00:28:35,418
practically an act of God for the strike to be settled.

461
00:28:35,594 --> 00:28:39,410
But the situation in Champaign was different from other

462
00:28:39,490 --> 00:28:42,890
regions, because Otto Klebisch was not

463
00:28:42,930 --> 00:28:46,762
only the guy in charge, he was a connoisseur. He

464
00:28:46,786 --> 00:28:50,122
knew what good champagne was and

465
00:28:50,306 --> 00:28:54,110
maybe more importantly, what bad champagne was. And

466
00:28:54,490 --> 00:28:57,896
some of the champagne makers adulterated their

467
00:28:57,928 --> 00:29:01,752
wines, did various things that are

468
00:29:01,776 --> 00:29:05,380
probably unmentionable on a podcast. But

469
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:09,120
some of this got back to Klebusch

470
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,280
and he hauled the culprits in

471
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,152
and at one point sent one of them, a guy

472
00:29:16,176 --> 00:29:19,952
named Tayttinger, to prison. And he was

473
00:29:19,976 --> 00:29:23,712
not the only one he hauled in. He put several of the winemakers

474
00:29:23,736 --> 00:29:27,370
in prison, was until

475
00:29:28,070 --> 00:29:31,670
later in the war, when they came down really

476
00:29:31,750 --> 00:29:35,454
hard on champagne and sent

477
00:29:35,582 --> 00:29:39,414
the man who is nominally the head of the champagne

478
00:29:39,462 --> 00:29:43,198
industry, a man named Robert Jean de Vaugue, and he

479
00:29:43,214 --> 00:29:46,982
was also head of moet when they

480
00:29:47,046 --> 00:29:50,822
arrested him and his assistant, a man by the name of

481
00:29:50,846 --> 00:29:54,370
Formonthe, and sent them off to concentration

482
00:29:54,450 --> 00:29:57,418
camps, Robert Jean de

483
00:29:57,434 --> 00:30:00,190
Vauguet became so ill

484
00:30:01,010 --> 00:30:04,842
and developed gangrene in the little finger on his

485
00:30:04,906 --> 00:30:08,698
left hand. He realized that unless

486
00:30:08,754 --> 00:30:12,350
something was done, he would die. So

487
00:30:13,290 --> 00:30:16,938
he found a piece of glass and sharpened it and sharpened it until

488
00:30:16,994 --> 00:30:20,662
he could cut off his own finger, which was how

489
00:30:20,766 --> 00:30:24,510
he survived. But when he came home, he was nothing

490
00:30:24,550 --> 00:30:28,166
but a skeleton. But Klebusch

491
00:30:28,198 --> 00:30:31,330
realized that he was, that Dvoga

492
00:30:31,830 --> 00:30:35,486
was head of the resistance in that

493
00:30:35,558 --> 00:30:39,050
part of the country and as a result,

494
00:30:39,830 --> 00:30:43,486
was determined to, if he couldn't have him executed, have him

495
00:30:43,518 --> 00:30:47,262
work to death. I wish I had

496
00:30:47,286 --> 00:30:50,958
known this about Tanger before, because I had Clovis Taytanjay on the

497
00:30:50,974 --> 00:30:54,462
show recently and I could have brought up the fact that his.

498
00:30:54,646 --> 00:30:57,530
Relative, his

499
00:30:58,110 --> 00:31:01,766
great uncle, right? Yeah.

500
00:31:01,958 --> 00:31:05,190
Actually, Klebisch went after Taytanger

501
00:31:05,230 --> 00:31:08,886
and, you know, said, you know, how dare you foist,

502
00:31:08,958 --> 00:31:12,678
you know, dirty ditch water on us

503
00:31:12,734 --> 00:31:16,446
Germans, and replied, well, it's not like you Germans

504
00:31:16,478 --> 00:31:19,986
know anything about good champagne? And, you know, that was

505
00:31:20,018 --> 00:31:23,590
when Tasinger suddenly found himself behind bars. Oops.

506
00:31:24,050 --> 00:31:26,550
Yeah, he had Maurice Durant.

507
00:31:27,770 --> 00:31:31,190
Was he one of the subjects behind bars? That.

508
00:31:32,890 --> 00:31:36,482
Almost. He was. The

509
00:31:36,506 --> 00:31:39,834
Germans came to his place and tried to arrest him.

510
00:31:39,882 --> 00:31:43,346
And, yeah, he was the middle,

511
00:31:43,458 --> 00:31:47,078
well, middle of the night. It was early morning when they knocked on the door.

512
00:31:47,134 --> 00:31:50,726
And he, he was pretty much aware that he was a target

513
00:31:50,838 --> 00:31:54,342
because he'd been very active in world war one and

514
00:31:54,446 --> 00:31:58,006
had spent time in America. They knew that his sympathies

515
00:31:58,158 --> 00:32:01,838
were definitely not with the Germans. So when they came

516
00:32:01,894 --> 00:32:04,982
after him, he was prepared. He'd already had a suitcase

517
00:32:05,046 --> 00:32:08,638
packed. And as they knocked on the door,

518
00:32:08,814 --> 00:32:12,526
his wife went to the window because their house was on the

519
00:32:12,558 --> 00:32:15,918
rue d'enfer, the rue street of

520
00:32:15,934 --> 00:32:19,170
hell. And that's right, the

521
00:32:19,590 --> 00:32:23,142
winery was down below. They lived up above. She opened up the

522
00:32:23,166 --> 00:32:26,766
windows, buying time, and said, what is it? What do you

523
00:32:26,798 --> 00:32:30,262
want? Et cetera? Now, because it was winter, it was

524
00:32:30,326 --> 00:32:33,910
cold, and there wasn't much for heating. Their son

525
00:32:33,990 --> 00:32:37,468
Robert had come in to sleep in their bedroom.

526
00:32:37,654 --> 00:32:41,192
And when he heard this, he began to crawl.

527
00:32:41,336 --> 00:32:45,040
He crawled out into the next room where his sisters were

528
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,784
all sleeping, and said, mama is at the window

529
00:32:48,832 --> 00:32:52,528
telling the Gestapo that Papa's gone to Paris

530
00:32:52,584 --> 00:32:56,360
on business. So when the Gestapo came

531
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,808
in, they questioned the kids. And then they got to

532
00:32:59,824 --> 00:33:03,080
Robert, who was by this time, back in bed, a little

533
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:06,920
boy. And they believed this sleepy little

534
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:10,752
boy who said, mama's, I don't know where Papa is. Mama said, he's gone to

535
00:33:10,776 --> 00:33:14,304
Paris on business. Wow. Meanwhile,

536
00:33:14,352 --> 00:33:17,584
Papa was down in the cellars going through a little

537
00:33:17,632 --> 00:33:21,368
door and escaping. Now from the route d'enfer, the root

538
00:33:21,384 --> 00:33:24,808
of hell, to the rue de Paradis, the street of paradise.

539
00:33:24,904 --> 00:33:28,728
Yeah. And he went into hiding for the rest of the war.

540
00:33:28,824 --> 00:33:31,590
What an amazing. You know, how did you.

541
00:33:32,970 --> 00:33:36,110
I understand, and I want to hear the answer is how you

542
00:33:36,850 --> 00:33:40,642
found these stories and peeled it back. But it's hard

543
00:33:40,666 --> 00:33:43,970
to do it justice as you, and I'm visualizing, as you're telling the

544
00:33:44,010 --> 00:33:47,618
story, you know, this child crawling into his bed and saying

545
00:33:47,674 --> 00:33:51,106
these things and. But the Gestapo is banging on the door, who was feared

546
00:33:51,178 --> 00:33:54,762
greatly. You know, I think it's somewhere in your book you talk about.

547
00:33:54,906 --> 00:33:58,660
Yeah, don't you know, we're the good guys. Wait till the yellow bands

548
00:33:58,700 --> 00:34:02,132
come. And this is going to be a problem when the

549
00:34:02,156 --> 00:34:05,524
Gestapo. What suspense and what

550
00:34:05,612 --> 00:34:09,436
drama. Can you do it justice? And how did you find these

551
00:34:09,468 --> 00:34:13,300
stories? How'd you peel them back by

552
00:34:13,340 --> 00:34:17,172
chance, really. I mean, we were familiar with the

553
00:34:17,196 --> 00:34:20,520
wine scene in France. We took our vacations

554
00:34:20,940 --> 00:34:24,300
most of the time in various vineyards or wine

555
00:34:24,340 --> 00:34:27,576
regions, and we got to know some of the winemakers.

556
00:34:27,688 --> 00:34:31,184
And, you know, we sort of became

557
00:34:31,232 --> 00:34:34,952
acquainted with the people who went way back, whose families

558
00:34:35,016 --> 00:34:38,776
had a history. And so, you know, we began knocking on doors.

559
00:34:38,888 --> 00:34:42,312
And hewitt was an incredible help. He,

560
00:34:42,496 --> 00:34:45,776
from his contacts, he was head of what, the

561
00:34:45,808 --> 00:34:48,620
Inao at that time in France. And

562
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,945
he pointed this to other people, some of the men he'd

563
00:34:52,977 --> 00:34:56,801
been in prison with. But nonetheless, along the

564
00:34:56,825 --> 00:35:00,161
way, there were lots of people who said to us, nobody will talk to

565
00:35:00,185 --> 00:35:03,785
you. Collaboration is still a sensitive

566
00:35:03,857 --> 00:35:07,473
point in France. And we did have

567
00:35:07,521 --> 00:35:11,353
plenty of people discourage us. Yeah. One

568
00:35:11,401 --> 00:35:15,201
person, Chateau Bechval in

569
00:35:15,225 --> 00:35:19,066
Saint Julien. After agreeing to meet

570
00:35:19,098 --> 00:35:22,626
with us, after thanking us and saying, I

571
00:35:22,658 --> 00:35:26,310
appreciate you're taking an interest in our story,

572
00:35:27,530 --> 00:35:31,114
he called up and said,

573
00:35:31,242 --> 00:35:34,946
I'm not going to talk to you. What's going on? And

574
00:35:35,018 --> 00:35:38,786
we tried to persuade him to change his mind. He finally

575
00:35:38,818 --> 00:35:42,586
said, look, let the living live in

576
00:35:42,618 --> 00:35:46,270
peace. Let the dead live in peace. Rest in peace.

577
00:35:46,390 --> 00:35:49,686
Rest in peace. Yeah, that, too. I always blow that

578
00:35:49,718 --> 00:35:52,850
line. I think we understood what you're saying.

579
00:35:53,150 --> 00:35:56,950
But by and large, even with some

580
00:35:56,990 --> 00:36:00,798
discouragement, we found that most people were first of all

581
00:36:00,854 --> 00:36:04,670
surprised and then very touched that we were interested in

582
00:36:04,710 --> 00:36:08,110
hearing about their stories and how they struggled to

583
00:36:08,150 --> 00:36:11,740
survive, because it was a real struggle. That's

584
00:36:11,780 --> 00:36:15,532
incredible. Absolutely incredible, because you're talking 21 years ago now

585
00:36:15,556 --> 00:36:19,036
that you started the conversation. Many of those stories are now, have been

586
00:36:19,068 --> 00:36:22,700
buried with the folks. I mean, we were talking about May long

587
00:36:22,740 --> 00:36:26,252
song. She's, she's 96 years old or something, and she, you know,

588
00:36:26,276 --> 00:36:29,440
she's able, but she's probably not going to tell these stories again.

589
00:36:30,140 --> 00:36:33,160
And how sad that, that there was.

590
00:36:34,380 --> 00:36:37,572
I'm sure they weren't trying to protect anybody at that point or protect the Germans

591
00:36:37,596 --> 00:36:40,854
to protect the relationships. They were just protecting the story.

592
00:36:41,022 --> 00:36:44,646
Just let it go. And how sad that is because it's such an important

593
00:36:44,718 --> 00:36:48,038
story to tell. You know what? I think

594
00:36:48,094 --> 00:36:51,678
we. I think we were there at the right time. As you

595
00:36:51,694 --> 00:36:55,118
said, nearly everyone we talked to has since

596
00:36:55,294 --> 00:36:58,782
gone to till the vineyards in the sky, I guess.

597
00:36:58,846 --> 00:37:02,286
Yeah. But the rest of the

598
00:37:02,318 --> 00:37:05,878
time we think that it helped. Being

599
00:37:05,934 --> 00:37:09,720
Americans, they didn't have to try and figure out where

600
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,592
our family stood during the war, whether we were from a

601
00:37:13,616 --> 00:37:17,128
family of collaborators or a family of de

602
00:37:17,144 --> 00:37:20,840
Gaulle sympathizers, but instead they

603
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,432
knew what our attitudes would be.

604
00:37:24,616 --> 00:37:28,088
And they had all reached a point in their lives where they had

605
00:37:28,184 --> 00:37:31,856
done what they wanted to do, what they had

606
00:37:31,888 --> 00:37:35,520
hoped to do, and were perhaps ready to look

607
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:39,248
back at it. Whereas before, they were really, really

608
00:37:39,304 --> 00:37:42,460
busy putting lives together after the war,

609
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,424
many of them wanted to forget about it and just move

610
00:37:46,472 --> 00:37:50,140
ahead. Understandably

611
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:54,024
so. For us, it was just the right time and we

612
00:37:54,152 --> 00:37:57,952
were lucky enough to meet some of the right people. Yeah. May de Lanka

613
00:37:57,976 --> 00:38:01,746
sang could not have been more receptive. We

614
00:38:01,778 --> 00:38:05,402
went to her chateau. She came trooping into the room and

615
00:38:05,466 --> 00:38:08,826
described in vivid detail how the Germans burned

616
00:38:08,898 --> 00:38:12,490
furniture there to keep warm in the winter, how the

617
00:38:12,530 --> 00:38:15,674
smell of oil from what, their jackboots and everything

618
00:38:15,762 --> 00:38:18,150
just permeated everything.

619
00:38:19,690 --> 00:38:23,042
Unreal. Yeah. Yeah. And how they

620
00:38:23,066 --> 00:38:26,798
absconded, how the Germans took all the horses, which meant that

621
00:38:26,914 --> 00:38:30,598
plowing the fields meant that they had to use cows.

622
00:38:30,694 --> 00:38:34,302
I mean, May says, oh, those poor cows.

623
00:38:34,406 --> 00:38:37,450
And they had to give milk, too. Wow.

624
00:38:38,310 --> 00:38:42,090
But it was just one story after another. She was a teenager.

625
00:38:42,670 --> 00:38:46,286
You mentioned Maurice Drouen. His family was

626
00:38:46,318 --> 00:38:49,650
actually well prepared when the Germans came.

627
00:38:50,430 --> 00:38:54,280
Robert Drouen tells us, or told us how he

628
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,016
and his sisters went down into the cave

629
00:38:58,128 --> 00:39:01,864
and with their parents, they erected a false wall behind which

630
00:39:02,032 --> 00:39:05,740
they hid their most precious wines, which. Was Roman a conti.

631
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,832
They were distributing Roman a conti. And then they

632
00:39:09,856 --> 00:39:13,400
began picking up spiders and putting them on the walls

633
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:17,016
so that they could spin cobwebs and make the walls look

634
00:39:17,128 --> 00:39:20,590
actually older than they actually were. So it's just

635
00:39:20,970 --> 00:39:24,570
one story after another. One person leading us to

636
00:39:24,610 --> 00:39:28,242
somebody else who had a fascinating tale to

637
00:39:28,266 --> 00:39:32,002
tell. That's like Hollywood, right? We're fake

638
00:39:32,106 --> 00:39:35,578
walls with fake spider. Well, they're real spider webs, but they were

639
00:39:35,674 --> 00:39:39,506
intentionally put. It's kind of the question I just wrote down here

640
00:39:39,538 --> 00:39:43,190
was, did they disrupt history, or did they create history

641
00:39:43,810 --> 00:39:47,206
by the invasion and then absconding with whines and

642
00:39:47,238 --> 00:39:50,494
disrupting the thing? I guess that answer isn't

643
00:39:50,582 --> 00:39:54,318
necessarily evident, but the difference between Bordeaux and

644
00:39:54,334 --> 00:39:58,054
Burgundy in general is family history. It's a

645
00:39:58,062 --> 00:40:01,878
very tight knit group of people. In Burgundy, you don't even think you're going to

646
00:40:01,894 --> 00:40:05,622
buy a chateau there and invade the

647
00:40:05,646 --> 00:40:09,358
hundreds of years of history. But in Bordeaux, there's

648
00:40:09,454 --> 00:40:13,216
chateau for sale. I know there's a couple of

649
00:40:13,248 --> 00:40:15,540
russian owned ones that are not doing so well right now, but

650
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:19,952
this is not a political show. All right, so we're not going to get into

651
00:40:19,976 --> 00:40:23,140
that. Do you.

652
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,944
Do you sense that some of these stories are soon

653
00:40:28,072 --> 00:40:31,904
lost, even though we've lost some of the players, you know, they've handed them down

654
00:40:31,952 --> 00:40:35,656
to family members. I know that if I needed to

655
00:40:35,688 --> 00:40:39,432
speak to. To me long song, I can talk to the great, the grandson.

656
00:40:39,496 --> 00:40:43,258
He'll remember the stories. But do you think today, 23 years later, after you

657
00:40:43,274 --> 00:40:46,754
wrote the book, that maybe some of those stories are gone forever

658
00:40:46,842 --> 00:40:50,626
without this book? Well, you know, it's the only book

659
00:40:50,658 --> 00:40:53,906
of its kind nobody had written about.

660
00:40:54,058 --> 00:40:57,850
Unbelievable. That we were writing about, and

661
00:40:57,930 --> 00:41:01,746
nobody has written about it since. And it would be impossible to

662
00:41:01,778 --> 00:41:05,514
go and, you know, duplicate what we have

663
00:41:05,562 --> 00:41:09,218
written. So in that sense, I think some of the stories

664
00:41:09,274 --> 00:41:12,746
have been lost, but they're still out there.

665
00:41:12,898 --> 00:41:16,626
And the book itself don't mean to toot

666
00:41:16,658 --> 00:41:20,234
our horn. The book has been sort of an evergreen.

667
00:41:20,322 --> 00:41:24,098
It's been an international bestseller. It's done really well in

668
00:41:24,114 --> 00:41:27,710
the United States. And do you know what our best foreign market is?

669
00:41:28,010 --> 00:41:31,070
Here we go. Our best foreign market is Germany.

670
00:41:31,650 --> 00:41:35,150
Really? Yeah. I think those generations,

671
00:41:35,450 --> 00:41:37,270
they want to know the history, too, right?

672
00:41:39,250 --> 00:41:42,354
The publisher, they've had us back there on three book

673
00:41:42,402 --> 00:41:45,994
tours, and the second

674
00:41:46,082 --> 00:41:49,698
best market, or internationally, is

675
00:41:49,834 --> 00:41:53,394
Brazil, where the boys are, right? Oh, yeah.

676
00:41:53,442 --> 00:41:56,954
Right. At least the descendants of. Right.

677
00:41:57,042 --> 00:42:00,310
Argentina, maybe. Exactly.

678
00:42:00,610 --> 00:42:03,440
Wow. So

679
00:42:04,460 --> 00:42:07,460
there's a like. And I was trying to find it before we got on the

680
00:42:07,500 --> 00:42:10,560
air here, the vintage that

681
00:42:10,940 --> 00:42:14,684
Goering was trying to find in tour d'Argent. Ah,

682
00:42:14,772 --> 00:42:18,244
yeah. 18, 1860, 918,

683
00:42:18,292 --> 00:42:22,028
69, and 67. And I have. I was. The reason I wanted to look it

684
00:42:22,044 --> 00:42:24,708
up in the book was to go research the vintage, to find out what was

685
00:42:24,724 --> 00:42:28,558
so great about why he knew about it. But more interestingly, that's

686
00:42:28,574 --> 00:42:30,502
a whole different part of the world. I want to touch on it a little

687
00:42:30,526 --> 00:42:34,006
bit, and then I want to get to champagne. But

688
00:42:34,198 --> 00:42:37,790
when they came to Paris, he makes a beeline for tour

689
00:42:37,830 --> 00:42:41,598
d'argent for the listeners. Tour d'Argent, probably the most famous restaurant in

690
00:42:41,614 --> 00:42:45,250
the world, and if not, at least the most famous seller in the world.

691
00:42:45,710 --> 00:42:48,998
And I have to tell you an anecdotal story. When in

692
00:42:49,014 --> 00:42:52,326
1993, my father and I and my mom and my wife went to

693
00:42:52,478 --> 00:42:56,314
Vinexpo in Bordeaux, and we stopped in Paris, and I had just sold

694
00:42:56,362 --> 00:43:00,098
my grandparents house for them in Hollywood. And my

695
00:43:00,114 --> 00:43:03,962
dad says, your commission. We're going to go to tour d'Argent. And so we

696
00:43:03,986 --> 00:43:06,466
go there, and I have a jacket. You know, they got to buy a jacket

697
00:43:06,498 --> 00:43:10,290
for a couple of francs, and my dad orders the 45

698
00:43:10,330 --> 00:43:14,138
Lafitte. Wow. Yeah. I think at the time, it

699
00:43:14,154 --> 00:43:17,810
was $3,500 a bottle. Okay, so it's a little steep, but yeah,

700
00:43:17,850 --> 00:43:21,626
that's pretty good commission, right? Yes. And he brings it out. The ullage

701
00:43:21,658 --> 00:43:25,468
is pretty dramatic. It's caked with dust. And my dad tells. And

702
00:43:25,484 --> 00:43:29,228
my dad spoke French at the time. He tells the psalm, he

703
00:43:29,244 --> 00:43:32,076
says, I'll tell you what I'll do. You open it. If it's good, we pay

704
00:43:32,108 --> 00:43:34,876
for it. If it's not, you pay for it. The guy goes, no, we're not

705
00:43:34,908 --> 00:43:38,652
doing that. So

706
00:43:38,796 --> 00:43:42,628
he puts it back and I think we got a 62 Costa estranel or

707
00:43:42,644 --> 00:43:45,720
something. And it was fabulous. Of course, it was only dollar 600,

708
00:43:46,140 --> 00:43:49,466
but I, obviously, the

709
00:43:49,498 --> 00:43:53,338
German Reich and the generals and Goering

710
00:43:53,434 --> 00:43:57,226
particularly knew of tour d'argent, knew of the vintages they

711
00:43:57,258 --> 00:44:00,578
wanted and how amazing. They built a

712
00:44:00,594 --> 00:44:04,042
wall to protect, what, 20,000 bottles or

713
00:44:04,066 --> 00:44:07,482
something. Yeah. And it had to be done really

714
00:44:07,546 --> 00:44:11,058
quickly. Claude Tarai, the late owner

715
00:44:11,234 --> 00:44:13,910
of the restaurant, had to fly back from

716
00:44:14,450 --> 00:44:18,114
Lyon, you know, and, you know, got to Paris

717
00:44:18,162 --> 00:44:21,890
just in time, went into the restaurant and, you know, went

718
00:44:21,930 --> 00:44:25,610
downstairs, began, you know, slapping the mortar and bricks together

719
00:44:25,690 --> 00:44:29,538
as quickly as they could. It took, what, just 6 hours?

720
00:44:29,594 --> 00:44:32,994
It was the time they had to do it. I mean, they'd already

721
00:44:33,082 --> 00:44:36,634
know. They knew for sure what wines they were going to put

722
00:44:36,682 --> 00:44:40,506
back there, but. And maybe had done some of that, but they had

723
00:44:40,538 --> 00:44:44,208
very little time to do it. And I. And more importantly, they

724
00:44:44,224 --> 00:44:47,872
had. They got it done in time because it was, what, just the following

725
00:44:47,936 --> 00:44:51,592
day. Like the next day, the Germans arrived and they said, yeah, we've come for

726
00:44:51,616 --> 00:44:55,260
your wines, especially the famous 1860

727
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:57,860
whatever, I think.

728
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:03,224
Yeah, we'll look it up. And the Mater D says, you know, I'm

729
00:45:03,272 --> 00:45:06,920
sorry, sir, but, you know, all of those have been drunk.

730
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,468
There are no more. Oh, but that's impossible. We've heard such

731
00:45:10,524 --> 00:45:14,120
wonderful things about the 1860 nines. Please, you must,

732
00:45:14,420 --> 00:45:17,772
you know, we're going to go down and check ourselves. And

733
00:45:17,956 --> 00:45:20,880
so they did. Unbelievable. They went through everything.

734
00:45:21,380 --> 00:45:25,204
Unbelievable. There was, I think they said in the book, there's 100,000 wines at

735
00:45:25,212 --> 00:45:28,716
the time. What a collection in 1940. I mean, that's

736
00:45:28,748 --> 00:45:31,580
unbelievable. They made off with the, what,

737
00:45:31,660 --> 00:45:35,356
80,000? With the 80,000 and left the 20,000

738
00:45:35,428 --> 00:45:39,168
hit the 20,000 that were hidden. Yeah. Which was, you know, all

739
00:45:39,184 --> 00:45:42,904
right, a good cushion to rebuild with, you know, when the war stopped.

740
00:45:42,952 --> 00:45:46,744
But it was a close call. I suppose they

741
00:45:46,752 --> 00:45:49,780
were just tired of Riesling. I don't know that they were

742
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,872
maybe just going after all the best

743
00:45:54,896 --> 00:45:58,608
word. Oh, well, there's another book, you probably know of it, tl Amasio's

744
00:45:58,744 --> 00:46:02,016
the hotel place vendome, which sort of takes

745
00:46:02,208 --> 00:46:05,712
your story from them arriving in Paris, but now they've

746
00:46:05,736 --> 00:46:09,292
invaded the hotel, and Goering was a regular and

747
00:46:09,356 --> 00:46:12,964
hanging out in the, you know, bar, Hemingway and all these fabulous, fabulous stories

748
00:46:13,012 --> 00:46:16,796
that I find fascinating. But

749
00:46:16,828 --> 00:46:20,292
I want to move to champagne a little bit because another

750
00:46:20,356 --> 00:46:23,956
fascinating in a book you've written. What year did the book Champagne come

751
00:46:23,988 --> 00:46:27,804
out? I think it was about 2005. About five

752
00:46:27,852 --> 00:46:31,400
years. Yeah. Was this

753
00:46:32,460 --> 00:46:36,268
because of your studies for wine and war? That,

754
00:46:36,444 --> 00:46:40,036
boy, this region is really special, and I want to peel that back a little

755
00:46:40,068 --> 00:46:43,684
further. Is that the impetus for the book? Yeah, pretty

756
00:46:43,732 --> 00:46:47,116
much. Because all the time we were in

757
00:46:47,228 --> 00:46:50,796
Champaign working on wine and war, we'd talk to people

758
00:46:50,868 --> 00:46:54,564
about, oh, how terrible the war must have been. And

759
00:46:54,692 --> 00:46:58,316
almost universally they said to us, yeah, it was

760
00:46:58,388 --> 00:47:01,788
awful, but it was not nearly as bad as World War

761
00:47:01,844 --> 00:47:05,470
one. So we became

762
00:47:05,550 --> 00:47:09,302
really fascinated by the stories of what

763
00:47:09,326 --> 00:47:12,846
had happened. Then, of course, we weren't able to do the same

764
00:47:12,918 --> 00:47:16,606
kind of first person interviews, but we

765
00:47:16,638 --> 00:47:20,382
were able to see a lot of the, what

766
00:47:20,406 --> 00:47:23,974
should I say, the relics of the war. The remains of how the

767
00:47:24,102 --> 00:47:27,942
cellars were constructed were, for instance, in

768
00:47:27,966 --> 00:47:31,448
Krug, a chapel built for the protestant

769
00:47:31,504 --> 00:47:35,056
soldiers. We were able to go through the cellars and see

770
00:47:35,088 --> 00:47:38,632
how the soldiers had marched from the train

771
00:47:38,696 --> 00:47:42,304
station, essentially underground, straight out to the front,

772
00:47:42,352 --> 00:47:46,144
because Pomeran was right on the front line of World War

773
00:47:46,192 --> 00:47:49,552
one. Yeah. A big difference between the

774
00:47:49,576 --> 00:47:53,136
takeovers of. Well, between World War one and World War two is

775
00:47:53,168 --> 00:47:56,478
that in World War two, the Germans were, you

776
00:47:56,494 --> 00:47:59,610
know, determined to preserve

777
00:48:00,430 --> 00:48:03,902
the goose that lays the golden egg. You know, they didn't want to destroy the

778
00:48:03,926 --> 00:48:06,930
wine situation there. In World War one,

779
00:48:07,670 --> 00:48:11,342
everything practically was destroyed. They put their

780
00:48:11,366 --> 00:48:15,006
hand on as much stuff as they could and then just leveled the

781
00:48:15,038 --> 00:48:18,862
place. So many battles were fought there and

782
00:48:19,006 --> 00:48:22,290
so much armament went into the ground,

783
00:48:23,390 --> 00:48:26,798
the gas shells, the mustard gas and other chemical gas,

784
00:48:26,934 --> 00:48:30,118
that many of the vineyards were so severely

785
00:48:30,174 --> 00:48:33,902
poisoned that there are still some that some that they

786
00:48:33,926 --> 00:48:37,542
can't plant in today because of the poisoning. And many

787
00:48:37,606 --> 00:48:41,238
towns and little villages in Champaign disappeared during

788
00:48:41,294 --> 00:48:44,490
the war. It was a very, very

789
00:48:45,510 --> 00:48:49,310
battle scarred area throughout. You know, when I was

790
00:48:49,350 --> 00:48:53,088
working with ABC News, I went out with the bomb

791
00:48:53,144 --> 00:48:56,376
squad. There is a bomb squad that still exists there,

792
00:48:56,528 --> 00:48:59,728
and it periodically gets phone calls

793
00:48:59,784 --> 00:49:03,260
from some person who says,

794
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,992
I just found this big shell in my garden, or from a

795
00:49:07,016 --> 00:49:10,296
farmer who says, my plow struck something in the field.

796
00:49:10,448 --> 00:49:14,208
And the size of these things are like

797
00:49:14,264 --> 00:49:17,380
6ft tall and some of them any,

798
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,536
they're still leaking these chemicals and when the

799
00:49:21,568 --> 00:49:24,816
squad collects enough of them together, they take them out to a

800
00:49:24,848 --> 00:49:28,360
remote area, forest or something and blow it all

801
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:31,984
up. But in that way, the war is still

802
00:49:32,032 --> 00:49:35,768
very. That's amazing. That's amazing. This is World War one

803
00:49:35,824 --> 00:49:39,248
shells, primarily world War one.

804
00:49:39,384 --> 00:49:43,008
And, you know, practically. Well, what would you say,

805
00:49:43,024 --> 00:49:46,480
Clyde? At least once a year, maybe more, you will find that

806
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:50,016
someone has died, had been killed by one of these shells. So

807
00:49:50,048 --> 00:49:53,590
the. The death toll of World War one is still growing

808
00:49:54,130 --> 00:49:57,270
today. That's amazing.

809
00:49:58,570 --> 00:50:02,146
It seems that poor champagne is just through the

810
00:50:02,178 --> 00:50:05,950
ages, through the French Revolution, now world War one, then World War two just

811
00:50:06,770 --> 00:50:10,442
got abused. Well, in the book you're

812
00:50:10,466 --> 00:50:14,306
talking about, the champagne book, we say that it's the

813
00:50:14,338 --> 00:50:18,170
area that's had more bloodshed than probably any other small

814
00:50:18,250 --> 00:50:21,522
area in the world because these date to prehistoric

815
00:50:21,586 --> 00:50:25,410
battles. We start with Attila the Hun, who fought

816
00:50:25,450 --> 00:50:29,170
one of the greatest battles of all, one of the bloodiest battles in

817
00:50:29,210 --> 00:50:32,850
Champaign. Wow. And you've got the Hundred Years war, the 30 years

818
00:50:32,890 --> 00:50:36,562
war, the wars of spanish succession, et

819
00:50:36,586 --> 00:50:40,314
cetera, et cetera. You know, all of them were fought in,

820
00:50:40,362 --> 00:50:44,140
or at least partly in champagne. And. And before that

821
00:50:44,260 --> 00:50:48,068
you had wild tribes from the east invading.

822
00:50:48,204 --> 00:50:52,052
I mean, the whole place has suffered from an overdose of invasions. Looks like

823
00:50:52,076 --> 00:50:55,828
I've got my next book ready to read. I

824
00:50:55,844 --> 00:50:59,596
didn't know we went back that far. There's a book vuv clicquot, Madame

825
00:50:59,628 --> 00:51:02,600
Clicquot from t la masgio. Asio also.

826
00:51:03,260 --> 00:51:06,000
And this is one of the subjects I want to touch on. You talk about

827
00:51:06,380 --> 00:51:10,188
Marie Louise and buying the winery,

828
00:51:10,364 --> 00:51:13,868
the chateau. Laurent Perrier. Yeah, Laurent

829
00:51:13,884 --> 00:51:17,732
Perrier. I knew I had it written here. This is

830
00:51:17,756 --> 00:51:20,480
a fascinating concept and it's going to shift gears a little bit

831
00:51:21,340 --> 00:51:25,000
from war crimes and into sort of entrepreneurship.

832
00:51:25,420 --> 00:51:29,108
A hot topic today in the wine industry is women in

833
00:51:29,124 --> 00:51:32,492
wine. You know,

834
00:51:32,596 --> 00:51:36,228
everyone are frequently we're asked, how come there, you

835
00:51:36,244 --> 00:51:40,050
know, all these widows in champagne? Well, as you can

836
00:51:40,090 --> 00:51:43,750
imagine, with a lot of wars, there's a lot of widows.

837
00:51:45,290 --> 00:51:48,810
And in this case, Marie Louise

838
00:51:48,970 --> 00:51:52,162
de Nonencourt's husband was very

839
00:51:52,226 --> 00:51:55,618
badly wounded in world War one and she

840
00:51:55,674 --> 00:51:59,442
was concerned about her children and how

841
00:51:59,466 --> 00:52:02,844
they would survive. And so with some help from her

842
00:52:02,892 --> 00:52:06,420
family, which happened to be named Lanstone, she

843
00:52:06,460 --> 00:52:09,644
bought this rundown champagne

844
00:52:09,732 --> 00:52:13,564
house, was in such a terrible

845
00:52:13,612 --> 00:52:17,332
shape. It was what number? 99 out of the hundred champagne houses at

846
00:52:17,356 --> 00:52:21,156
the time. Wow. And she knew that

847
00:52:21,188 --> 00:52:24,796
nothing could happen during the war, that she wasn't going to be able to do

848
00:52:24,828 --> 00:52:28,124
anything with it. So she also was one of those who walled

849
00:52:28,172 --> 00:52:31,750
up the champagne they had and put her

850
00:52:31,830 --> 00:52:35,598
statue of the Virgin Mary into the wall to protect

851
00:52:35,694 --> 00:52:39,330
the wine. I remember that in the story.

852
00:52:39,790 --> 00:52:43,622
Yeah. But so I was just thinking, when he said

853
00:52:43,646 --> 00:52:47,342
that Madame Clicquot, I think, wasn't one of her relatives

854
00:52:47,366 --> 00:52:50,330
or ex husband or brother or something injured,

855
00:52:51,110 --> 00:52:54,650
wasn't able to work, there's kind of reflect on this.

856
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,740
That's right. Yeah. I believe it was her brother who was unable,

857
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:03,264
if I remember correctly. But the thing that's not

858
00:53:03,352 --> 00:53:07,112
puzzling, it's just interesting to me that it's such a

859
00:53:07,136 --> 00:53:10,048
hot issue to have women in wine now, but in champagne seems to be a

860
00:53:10,064 --> 00:53:13,832
district where that was not that unusual, at least. And I think

861
00:53:13,856 --> 00:53:17,520
in your book, you talk about how her relatives were saying, what are you talking

862
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:21,276
about? You're a woman. You can't do this. And, of course, creates this, you know,

863
00:53:21,308 --> 00:53:25,124
wonderful chateau and brings it back parallel in the

864
00:53:25,172 --> 00:53:28,444
17 hundreds, late 17 hundreds, early 18 hundreds. Madame Clicquot's doing the same

865
00:53:28,492 --> 00:53:32,204
thing. Not so unusual, but it's also

866
00:53:32,372 --> 00:53:35,996
a district of innovation. You know,

867
00:53:36,028 --> 00:53:39,516
where I was telling my staff, one of the things that Madame

868
00:53:39,548 --> 00:53:42,484
Clicot came up with is still being used today with the way they. I think

869
00:53:42,492 --> 00:53:45,120
it was how they riddled or how they basketed the wines.

870
00:53:45,940 --> 00:53:49,484
Fabulous innovation. Maybe that comes from all the strife and all this

871
00:53:49,532 --> 00:53:53,270
needs to recover. I don't know. Yeah. Innovation,

872
00:53:53,430 --> 00:53:57,222
promotion. What about this situation? I don't mean to put

873
00:53:57,246 --> 00:54:00,990
you on the spot, but placing the finger lakes that they needed.

874
00:54:01,110 --> 00:54:04,574
Oh, yeah, you were talking about women who took over. Louise

875
00:54:04,622 --> 00:54:07,966
Pomerie was one of them who took over Pommery and ran

876
00:54:07,998 --> 00:54:11,730
it and was so successful that.

877
00:54:12,710 --> 00:54:16,526
And in fact, as many of the champagne houses were so successful,

878
00:54:16,638 --> 00:54:20,176
everyone tried to imitate them, and a group

879
00:54:20,248 --> 00:54:23,648
of Americans were among them who thought,

880
00:54:23,784 --> 00:54:27,340
wow, you know, we can make wine in the finger lakes.

881
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:32,112
We just need to find a bit of promotion

882
00:54:32,176 --> 00:54:35,856
here. And so they traveled through France and ran

883
00:54:35,888 --> 00:54:39,648
across a widow, a cook, whose name

884
00:54:39,704 --> 00:54:42,808
happened to be Pomery, and they brought her back to

885
00:54:42,864 --> 00:54:45,740
America, established the widow Pomery,

886
00:54:46,690 --> 00:54:50,506
went to Congress and asked to have a post office named. And

887
00:54:50,538 --> 00:54:53,510
they named the post office reams, New York.

888
00:54:54,370 --> 00:54:58,138
Wow. I didn't know this story. They made champagne

889
00:54:58,194 --> 00:55:01,706
Pommery in reams. And the

890
00:55:01,738 --> 00:55:05,530
address still exists. Yeah. On some gps, you can still

891
00:55:05,570 --> 00:55:08,914
find Reims, New York. You call that american innovation, or do.

892
00:55:08,922 --> 00:55:11,550
We, I don't know.

893
00:55:12,730 --> 00:55:16,378
Who do we blame? There's actually still, when I

894
00:55:16,394 --> 00:55:19,850
stocked my dad's shelves in the seventies and eighties, a lot of the

895
00:55:19,930 --> 00:55:23,530
sparkling wines from California were called champagne back then, but there's still

896
00:55:23,570 --> 00:55:27,082
one that calls themselves California champagne, and I think that's wrong.

897
00:55:27,186 --> 00:55:30,986
But. Well, didn't Putin just announce

898
00:55:31,138 --> 00:55:34,810
a few months ago that you, nothing coming into Russia, with

899
00:55:34,850 --> 00:55:38,430
Russia being a huge market for champagne back in the day, but

900
00:55:39,690 --> 00:55:43,394
announced that nothing coming into Russia could be called champagne? Only sparkling

901
00:55:43,442 --> 00:55:46,550
wine made in Russia could be named champagne. Have you read that?

902
00:55:47,470 --> 00:55:49,170
Hey, how do you do that?

903
00:55:51,070 --> 00:55:54,462
You just make it up, I wonder. Make it up as you

904
00:55:54,486 --> 00:55:58,222
go for himself. Yeah, this has been

905
00:55:58,246 --> 00:56:01,662
fabulous. We're already at almost an hour, and so I want to do it again.

906
00:56:01,726 --> 00:56:05,214
But these are the two books I know about under your

907
00:56:05,262 --> 00:56:08,902
authorship. What other books have you written, and are they related to

908
00:56:08,926 --> 00:56:12,770
wine or other subjects? Well, about a year ago,

909
00:56:13,590 --> 00:56:16,950
we wrote a third book, again on champagne,

910
00:56:17,070 --> 00:56:20,646
but called Champagne Charlie, the

911
00:56:20,678 --> 00:56:23,690
frenchman who taught Americans to love champagne.

912
00:56:25,870 --> 00:56:29,254
Actually, we went further backward in time to the civil

913
00:56:29,302 --> 00:56:33,118
war. It's the story of a dashing young

914
00:56:33,174 --> 00:56:36,950
frenchman who decided to seek his fortune in the United

915
00:56:37,030 --> 00:56:40,566
States. The market in Europe was

916
00:56:40,718 --> 00:56:44,292
just, just full of champagne, and there

917
00:56:44,316 --> 00:56:48,060
was no place to sell it. So he thought, okay, I'm going off to

918
00:56:48,100 --> 00:56:51,812
America. Everybody thought he was nuts. The place is

919
00:56:51,836 --> 00:56:55,508
full of wild Indians. People said it's crude,

920
00:56:55,684 --> 00:56:57,960
it's unsophisticated, and

921
00:56:59,260 --> 00:57:02,932
you'll go bankrupt. But Charles Heidsich, the

922
00:57:02,956 --> 00:57:05,720
fellow who became known as Champagne Charlie,

923
00:57:06,700 --> 00:57:10,064
went anyway, and he was enormously

924
00:57:10,112 --> 00:57:13,580
successful. Everybody loved his champagne,

925
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:17,536
and things were going perfectly until he suddenly realized

926
00:57:17,608 --> 00:57:21,128
that his sales agent in New York was

927
00:57:21,184 --> 00:57:24,060
cheating him. And as a result,

928
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,820
Heizik decided ive got to go south and

929
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:32,496
try to collect money that ive lost or else im going to go out of

930
00:57:32,528 --> 00:57:36,144
business. Unfortunately, little thing called the US civil

931
00:57:36,192 --> 00:57:39,304
war had erupted, and he had to do a

932
00:57:39,392 --> 00:57:43,176
zigzag course to avoid battle lines and everything to

933
00:57:43,288 --> 00:57:46,912
get to south, get to his friends and try to

934
00:57:46,936 --> 00:57:50,320
collect his money. But, well,

935
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,752
long story short, nobody had any money.

936
00:57:53,936 --> 00:57:56,944
Heids hired two ships to ship, I think,

937
00:57:57,032 --> 00:58:00,720
cotton that he collected back to France for

938
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,448
textiles. The ships got sunk by Union

939
00:58:04,504 --> 00:58:08,232
gunboats. So Heizig decided, I got to get out of

940
00:58:08,256 --> 00:58:11,976
here. Unfortunately, he was passing through New

941
00:58:12,008 --> 00:58:15,712
Orleans. He was arrested by the commanding general

942
00:58:15,776 --> 00:58:19,460
there, a fellow named Beast Butler, and

943
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,740
thrown into prison and nearly executed.

944
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:26,892
This is probably the gist of our, of our book.

945
00:58:26,996 --> 00:58:30,440
Wow. Yeah. He was saved only,

946
00:58:31,620 --> 00:58:35,356
yeah, he was saved only at the last minute by, you know, the

947
00:58:35,388 --> 00:58:38,748
Lincoln administration, who didn't want to create another

948
00:58:38,844 --> 00:58:42,484
incident that would further inflame things. Now, part of

949
00:58:42,532 --> 00:58:45,680
the folio partners group, Michael Mondavi's family,

950
00:58:45,980 --> 00:58:48,800
is, I think, the owner of the brand, right?

951
00:58:50,900 --> 00:58:54,644
I don't believe so. I think that's one of the other Heidi brands.

952
00:58:54,692 --> 00:58:58,120
Yeah, maybe it's Piper Heidi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think.

953
00:58:58,440 --> 00:59:02,176
I think Emi owns Charles

954
00:59:02,208 --> 00:59:05,960
Heidsink. I have an idea for your next book. It's

955
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:09,760
called the Champagne Paul, the man

956
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:13,232
who taught his son in law to drink champagne and drove into the

957
00:59:13,256 --> 00:59:14,900
poorhouse. So that's.

958
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:22,312
It can be very interesting, you know, all

959
00:59:22,336 --> 00:59:25,736
these stories, and we're gonna have to do this again because there's more to tell.

960
00:59:25,928 --> 00:59:29,736
It did hit me as you're talking, and we're talking about champagne, for instance,

961
00:59:29,768 --> 00:59:33,180
with all the disruption over the years and the wars, and certainly

962
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:37,240
the book wine and war and wine is about the

963
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:40,904
story, and it's what changes

964
00:59:41,032 --> 00:59:43,648
what it feels like when you drink. And we talked about that in the beginning

965
00:59:43,664 --> 00:59:46,928
of the show, and I look at Napa and

966
00:59:47,024 --> 00:59:50,544
Argentina, Chile, all the new world locations,

967
00:59:50,632 --> 00:59:54,196
Australia, and, man, not only the time

968
00:59:54,268 --> 00:59:57,972
part, which is always sort of part of the conversation, that, you know, we just

969
00:59:57,996 --> 01:00:01,732
don't have the time into this industry that the old world does. But

970
01:00:01,756 --> 01:00:05,548
forget that. What about these events that have shaped the

971
01:00:05,564 --> 01:00:09,276
way people think? And in this case, one case, the way the soil works

972
01:00:09,308 --> 01:00:13,068
because it's full of phosphorus and they can't grow anything. But for

973
01:00:13,084 --> 01:00:16,508
the most part, the evidence, the events,

974
01:00:16,684 --> 01:00:20,528
the people's families that were disrupted, the stories that

975
01:00:20,544 --> 01:00:24,300
were told to the kids, that were told to the kids, shape

976
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:28,304
the story. And we don't have that here. We really

977
01:00:28,352 --> 01:00:32,200
don't. It's coming, and, you know, it's 200 years in the industry

978
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:35,216
or whatever. You know, I think post prohibition, you know, it's kind of

979
01:00:35,328 --> 01:00:38,736
restarted. But these are fascinating stories to tell. I'm

980
01:00:38,768 --> 01:00:41,952
so thrilled to have the chance to have you on the show and talk about

981
01:00:41,976 --> 01:00:45,410
it. Well, thank you. Yeah, for us, it's a. A great

982
01:00:45,450 --> 01:00:48,994
pleasure. Really is. Yeah, no, thank you for having

983
01:00:49,042 --> 01:00:51,670
us. Well, we're coming to Paris, and

984
01:00:53,530 --> 01:00:57,274
I have this idea. I was going to contact TLR Maggio,

985
01:00:57,322 --> 01:01:01,162
the author of the hotel place fondome, and I think

986
01:01:01,186 --> 01:01:04,778
there should be a tour of the hotel because

987
01:01:04,834 --> 01:01:08,410
Coco Chanel had her hidden rooms, and there were these pathways

988
01:01:08,490 --> 01:01:12,334
that Goering took. And, you know, the bartender. Can

989
01:01:12,342 --> 01:01:16,158
you imagine what the bartender at bar Hemingway or place vendome

990
01:01:16,214 --> 01:01:19,806
heard while Hemingway. Is that

991
01:01:19,838 --> 01:01:22,566
incredible? I mean, the stories you must have heard and the drinks he made for

992
01:01:22,598 --> 01:01:26,174
who? I mean, it's unreal what was going on there.

993
01:01:26,302 --> 01:01:29,530
And you've. Maybe that is the next book, but

994
01:01:29,910 --> 01:01:33,606
when are you headed back to Paris? We're going back,

995
01:01:33,758 --> 01:01:37,010
what, in about ten days, I guess. It is. Yeah.

996
01:01:39,090 --> 01:01:41,870
We're actually supposed to go to Armenia in June and

997
01:01:43,370 --> 01:01:46,978
go to a baptism. I wanted to also sort of start peeling back the story

998
01:01:47,034 --> 01:01:50,738
about the war in Azerbaijan and what it did to the

999
01:01:50,754 --> 01:01:54,442
wineries. And I wanted to go back to Paris on the way home.

1000
01:01:54,586 --> 01:01:58,362
Our friends want to go to Greece, but I'd rather come see you,

1001
01:01:58,386 --> 01:02:01,390
have a drink. Go walk through Cal Madeleine,

1002
01:02:02,330 --> 01:02:04,670
1945 Lafitte. Yes.

1003
01:02:06,910 --> 01:02:10,614
Yeah, we will. But the bulk of Don's

1004
01:02:10,702 --> 01:02:13,750
wine is going on auction

1005
01:02:13,870 --> 01:02:17,710
in April. Oh, where? Sotheby's or

1006
01:02:17,750 --> 01:02:21,534
Christie's? Art curial. Art curial.

1007
01:02:21,582 --> 01:02:25,430
Art curial. Okay. French. Yeah. In. In

1008
01:02:25,470 --> 01:02:28,926
France. Or. In France. Yeah. Correct.

1009
01:02:29,118 --> 01:02:32,704
And it's a lot of stuff we've. That

1010
01:02:32,792 --> 01:02:36,192
Don built up while we were doing wine and war. So there's

1011
01:02:36,216 --> 01:02:39,808
some. Yeah, some pretty old bottles there. Wow. Some going

1012
01:02:39,864 --> 01:02:43,540
back to, you know, the. The 19th century.

1013
01:02:45,000 --> 01:02:48,540
You know, that's a. That's a.

1014
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:52,656
I hope you're documenting this whole path of these

1015
01:02:52,688 --> 01:02:56,340
wines. Of course, the provenance of wine is the most important, particularly older vintages.

1016
01:02:57,360 --> 01:03:01,138
That is Seltzer book, just listing the wine in the provenance and how you

1017
01:03:01,154 --> 01:03:04,510
got it and what you know about it before you bought it. That's amazing.

1018
01:03:04,810 --> 01:03:08,546
Yeah, well, it's. Putting them on auction, it's like partying

1019
01:03:08,578 --> 01:03:12,026
with dear friends. Yeah, that's true, too. I

1020
01:03:12,058 --> 01:03:15,706
remember as a news correspondent walking

1021
01:03:15,738 --> 01:03:19,458
through Afghanistan and for more than 24

1022
01:03:19,514 --> 01:03:22,970
hours, pitch darkness. And the only thing that kept me going was

1023
01:03:23,090 --> 01:03:26,826
picturing my Cobdenh and remembering where I

1024
01:03:26,858 --> 01:03:30,378
placed every bottle. Oh, yeah. Over there were the Sauternes.

1025
01:03:30,554 --> 01:03:34,146
Down here, some old burgundy. Here was

1026
01:03:34,178 --> 01:03:37,458
some 1929. Oh, yeah.

1027
01:03:37,514 --> 01:03:41,030
Laberthe brevisac chateau.

1028
01:03:42,330 --> 01:03:45,874
Chateau that no longer exists. So you're living the who at

1029
01:03:45,922 --> 01:03:49,290
story right there. I mean, you're just. You're repeating exactly what he went through. Right?

1030
01:03:49,330 --> 01:03:52,588
I mean, yeah, this was. Yeah.

1031
01:03:52,684 --> 01:03:56,404
So don's doing better with it than I am. I'm.

1032
01:03:56,492 --> 01:03:58,960
In some ways, I'm feeling worse about it because

1033
01:04:00,620 --> 01:04:04,340
I know how special it was for him

1034
01:04:04,380 --> 01:04:08,156
to build up this collection. And I think I fought

1035
01:04:08,188 --> 01:04:11,760
against this for a long time, but. Okay. But. Hey, Paul,

1036
01:04:12,380 --> 01:04:14,880
can we ask. Can I ask you a question? Sure.

1037
01:04:16,940 --> 01:04:20,376
We started talking about these precious wines that the

1038
01:04:20,408 --> 01:04:24,100
Germans had stored up in Eagle's nest, and

1039
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:28,752
Bernard de Nonencourt discovered. Okay, it's up high on a

1040
01:04:28,776 --> 01:04:32,608
mountain, right? Oh, yes. How

1041
01:04:32,624 --> 01:04:36,408
do you suppose they got 100,000 bottles down from

1042
01:04:36,584 --> 01:04:40,112
a place like that? There were no roads. The

1043
01:04:40,136 --> 01:04:43,620
elevator was broken. Hitler's elevator was broken

1044
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:47,854
because Eagle's nest had, like. It's a single lane road that. That you

1045
01:04:47,902 --> 01:04:51,694
can, you know, you have to pass only, like, at the very beginning or

1046
01:04:51,702 --> 01:04:54,862
the very end, I think. And then. Now you're saying the elevator was broken, too?

1047
01:04:55,046 --> 01:04:58,558
I mean, the current eagle's nest. Yeah, but it was blocked, you know. How do

1048
01:04:58,574 --> 01:05:02,286
we get the. I thought you're gonna ask me a question I knew the answer

1049
01:05:02,318 --> 01:05:05,838
to. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I

1050
01:05:05,854 --> 01:05:09,662
don't. Not to put you on the spot. Hospital stretchers, they

1051
01:05:09,686 --> 01:05:13,126
called ambulances out, parked them at the base of the

1052
01:05:13,158 --> 01:05:16,588
mountainous. The french soldiers who got there first,

1053
01:05:16,764 --> 01:05:20,228
they were in competition with the Americans, went up with hospital

1054
01:05:20,324 --> 01:05:23,828
stretchers and came down transporting all those

1055
01:05:23,884 --> 01:05:27,560
bottles. The medics. The medics, yeah.

1056
01:05:27,900 --> 01:05:31,700
That's an amazing story. The other thing, actually,

1057
01:05:31,860 --> 01:05:34,380
when I read that part of the book, I thought, wait a minute. I thought

1058
01:05:34,460 --> 01:05:38,196
the Americans got there first or the Russians. That's what the

1059
01:05:38,228 --> 01:05:40,600
Americans want you to believe. They didn't

1060
01:05:41,860 --> 01:05:45,262
like the french guy in charge said, you know, God loves the

1061
01:05:45,286 --> 01:05:49,134
French. The French were ordered to take

1062
01:05:49,182 --> 01:05:52,646
their flag down and hoist the american one in its

1063
01:05:52,678 --> 01:05:56,198
place. That's fabulous. We were just a

1064
01:05:56,214 --> 01:05:58,966
stone's throw from Eagle's nest. I think we were in

1065
01:05:59,158 --> 01:06:02,290
Strasbourg. What's the cute

1066
01:06:02,830 --> 01:06:06,342
austrian town that looks like Christmas? Salisbury. Yes,

1067
01:06:06,366 --> 01:06:10,052
Salisbury. And we were going to take a trip to eagles dance, but it was

1068
01:06:10,076 --> 01:06:13,356
closed, so we couldn't do it. I would have. I would, but I would have

1069
01:06:13,468 --> 01:06:16,788
rather known the story before I went. So now if I do go, I'll know

1070
01:06:16,804 --> 01:06:20,396
the story. All right. Right. It's such a fabulous time,

1071
01:06:20,468 --> 01:06:24,060
and thank you so much for taking the time, and I wish you safe travels.

1072
01:06:24,100 --> 01:06:27,756
Bon voyage, and Abianto till the next

1073
01:06:27,788 --> 01:06:31,484
time. And see you in Paris,

1074
01:06:31,532 --> 01:06:35,000
maybe a l'or messi. Okay.

1075
01:06:36,460 --> 01:06:40,286
Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum. Carynae, forget to subscribe

1076
01:06:40,318 --> 01:06:44,046
because there's more great interviews on their way. And of course, all

1077
01:06:44,078 --> 01:06:47,798
these podcasts are sponsored by the original wine of the month club. 48 years

1078
01:06:47,814 --> 01:06:50,030
in business. Don't forget to visit our website,

1079
01:06:50,150 --> 01:06:53,982
wineofthemonthclip.com. folks, have a great time out

1080
01:06:54,006 --> 01:06:55,590
there in the wine world. Cheers.