![]() Sales to the countries at war with the Axis were, of course, impossible and in 1941 the press signalled the return to the United States of the bootleggers offering champagne substitutes as well as authentic champagne, just as in the heyday of Prohibition. For the production of champagne, as in the 1914-18 war, there were shortages in some materials and bottles were recycled, buyers being required to return them when they reordered. One might add that 1945 was also a fine vintage. There has been no grape moth, little or no harvest worms, just one frost in the spring, but more in 1944.a good wine every year and even, in 1943, an exceptional wine which will be talked about for years to come. oïdium, after being aggressive in 1943, has been benign during the other years. Here is what appeared on this subject in the Vigneron Champenois of January 1945: Apart from 1940, when there were so many disasters that the harvest was lost, the drought of the following four years has made mildew a certainty (translator’s note: mildew was not always undesirable) and enabled huge economies in copper sulphate. During the harvests it was hard to find enough pickers, and even if they could be found there was no food to feed them!įortunately nature was fairly generous. Vine growers used oxen, as was the custom in the Médoc. As well as the lack of labour there were chronic shortages of most things, including products to treat the vines and horses. It was the same in 1944 due the speed of the Allies’ advance and the help that they received from the Résistance, the Germans hastily evacuated the region which was spared any major destruction.īut, for four long years, Champagne was occupied by the Germans and, while its possessions were kept relatively safe, many of its men found themselves far away, in prison camps or taken over the Rhine as forced labour, or in free France or the French army in Algeria. Vitry-le-François was burnt, there was appalling destruction in Châlons-sur-Marne, and around the bridges that the French Army blew up as they retreated, and also near the railway stations that were bombed by the German air force, but the wine producing areas were spared and the vine growers and merchants generally did not experience too much damage. In June 1940 the German Army swept into France from the Aisne to the Seine and crossed the Marne without meeting serious resistance, despite the individual and collective heroism of many involved. ![]() ![]() ![]() During the Second World War, unlike during the First, the wine producing area of Champagne remained outside of the battle zone. ![]()
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