Chris Mercer on the various ways the French Champagne producers tried to keep their best wine from being diverted to the use of the Nazis:
By the time the French city of Reims was liberated in August 1944, many Champagne houses and growers had spent four years playing a game of high stakes cat-and-mouse with the local Nazi ‘wine fuhrer’, Otto Klaebisch.
As Julian Hitner writes in a feature published in the July issue of Decanter magazine, it was Klaebisch’s job to keep the Nazi empire topped up with France’s finest Champagnes. At its peak, Klaebisch was demanding 400,000 bottles per week.
In response, many Champenois resorted to subterfuge to try to protect their most precious vintages and cuvees.
As noted in the book Wine & War by Don & Petrie Kladstrup, some built fake walls in their cellar to hide their best stocks, while others intentionally mislabelled bottles.
On more than one occasion, Klaebisch suspected he was being duped. ‘How dare you send us fizzy dishwater?’ he asked 20-year-old Francois Taittinger.
‘Who cares? It’s not as if it’s going to be drunk by anyone who knows anything about Champagne,’ replied the young Taittinger, who was subsequently thrown in prison for several days.
H/T to Brendan for the link.
