The Winemaker's Wife(107)
“So what now?” Liv asked sometime later as the sun began to set. They were making their way slowly back to the main house, where Jo?l and Julien were waiting. “Will you stay a while?”
“Jo?l has been good enough to book our tickets with an open-ended departure,” Céline said with a smile. “And I was hoping you and I might spend some time together, Liv, if you are willing. We’ve lost so many years.”
Liv thought about Grandma Edith, whose life had been dictated by a terrible mistake, and about her own father, who was taken far too soon. “We have indeed,” she said softly. “But as someone I loved very much once told me, you can’t rewrite the past. But you can choose to live with your whole heart in the here and now.”
“Your grandmother’s words, I presume?” Céline smiled.
Liv bowed her head. “Yes.”
“She was a wise woman, my dear, much more than I gave her credit for. I will always regret that.” Céline sighed and looked into the distance for a moment, then turned her attention back to Liv. “Will you let me get to know you a bit, then? I want to know about your life, your family, your hopes and dreams. I want to know about the man your father grew to be. I want to know you, Liv, if that isn’t too much to ask.”
“I would like that.” Liv reached out and took the hand of the woman who had lost everything to give her life. “I would like that very much.”
author’s note
Champagne.
What does the word conjure for you? If you’re anything like me, you think of bubbles and celebration, France and fashion, good taste and a little bit of magic.
But did you know that the world-renowned sparkling wine comes from a region that has triumphed time and again over almost unimaginable odds? That war after war ravaged the vineyards of Champagne, each time threatening to wipe out the wine industry? That the central city of Reims, where many champagne houses have their headquarters, was almost entirely destroyed after more than a thousand consecutive days of shelling by the Germans beginning in 1914? Many of the region’s most storied vineyards actually sat along the Western Front in the First World War, meaning that at war’s end a century ago, the fields were filled with the blood of soldiers, plants ripped from the earth by constant explosions and gunfire, vines destroyed by poisonous gas. It’s a wonder anything managed to survive at all.
I used to take champagne for granted. Somewhere far away, people were picking grapes and mysteriously turning them into something delicious that fizzed and sparkled. But now I know the fact that champagne still exists—nay, is flourishing—is nothing short of a miracle. Every time I sip a glass, I know the magic contained in the bubbles is more than just a trick of fermentation and carbonic gas; it’s a testament to the blood, sweat, and tears of generation upon generation of winemakers. It’s an ode to the perseverance of the human spirit.
The last major conflict to take place in Champagne was the Second World War, and local resident Stéphanie Venet, who lives near the vineyards of Ville-Dommange and whose grandparents were part of a small resistance group during the war, sums up the attitude of the Champenois perfectly. “We were occupied, not destroyed,” she told me. “So life goes on.” Indeed it does, for the people and the vines.
It’s important to note that champagne is not a catch-all description for all wine that sparkles. To truly qualify as champagne, a wine must come from the Champagne growing area, less than a hundred miles from Paris in northeastern France. The region is unique; its location near the 49th parallel, close to the northernmost limits for effective grape growing, makes it a challenging place for grapes to survive. Beyond that, the ground itself—in some places containing a layer of chalk hundreds of feet thick—forces the roots of the vines to work harder to seek out moisture. But like the residents of Champagne, who have toiled for centuries to beat the odds, the vines themselves have found a way to thrive. This unlikely triumph is just one of the things that makes champagne—full of minerality and acidity, thanks in part to the chalky earth—so glorious, and so different from wines produced elsewhere.
When I first visited Champagne in 2014, on my honeymoon, I was captivated by its stories and its spirit. I have a deep interest in World War II—my previous novels The Sweetness of Forgetting and The Room on Rue Amélie are both set in France during that period—and as I researched the French Resistance for both books, I began to wonder whether the Resistance was active in Champagne, too. Wouldn’t it be poetic, I thought, if the same spirit of resilience that inspired winemakers to stand up to nature and circumstance also prompted them to stand up to the Nazis?
And of course, if you’ve finished reading The Winemaker’s Wife, you know that many winemakers in the region did exactly that. Much of their resistance was on a small scale—the mention in chapter 6 of winemakers using dirty bottles, bad corks, and second-rate cuvées in Germany-bound shipments is entirely true—but there was so much more at work in this region. Perhaps one of the most fascinating things I discovered at the outset of my research was that Count Robert-Jean de Vogüé, the managing director of the storied Mo?t & Chandon during the war, was also the leader of the Resistance movement in this area of France. He was arrested by the Gestapo in November 1943 and sentenced to death. In response, the winemakers of Champagne went on strike, and de Vogüé was instead sent to work in German labor camps, until he was liberated by the British in May 1945.