The Lost Vintage

Author: Ann Mah
Genre: Historical Ficiton (WWII)
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Source: Local Public Library
Publisher: William Morrow
First Published: June 19, 2018
First Line: "Meursault, Burgundy - Sept 2015: I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but the truth was this: I had vowed never to return to this place."

Book Description from GoodReads: Sweetbitter meets The Nightingale in this page-turning novel about a woman who returns to her family’s ancestral vineyard in Burgundy and unexpectedly uncovers a lost diary, an unknown relative, and a secret her family has been keeping since World War II

To become one of only a few hundred certified wine experts in the world, Kate must pass the notoriously difficult Master of Wine Examination. She’s failed twice before; her third attempt will be her last. Suddenly finding herself without a job and with the test a few months away, she travels to Burgundy, to spend the fall at the vineyard estate that has belonged to her family for generations. There she can bolster her shaky knowledge of Burgundian vintages and reconnect with her cousin Nico and his wife Heather, who now oversee the grapes’ day-to-day management. The one person Kate hopes to avoid is Jean-Luc, a neighbor vintner and her first love.

At the vineyard house, Kate is eager to help her cousins clean out the enormous basement that is filled with generations of discarded and forgotten belongings. Deep inside the cellar, behind a large armoire, she discovers a hidden room containing a cot, some Resistance pamphlets, and an enormous cache of valuable wine. Piqued by the secret space, Kate begins to dig into her family’s history—a search that takes her back to the dark days of the Second World War and introduces her to a relative she never knew existed, a great half-aunt who was teenager during the Nazi occupation.

As she learns more about her family, the line between Resistance and Collaboration blurs, driving Kate to find the answers to two crucial questions: Who, exactly, did her family aid during the difficult years of the war? And what happened to six valuable bottles of wine that seem to be missing from the cellar’s collection?

My Rating: 5 stars

My Review: If there ever was a book that made me want to grab a seat on the next plane to France and drink wine it is this book. 

Ann Mah, a Travel and Food writer and novelist, provides readers with stunning descriptions of the Burgundy region of France, its wine and history, as the backdrop to a story about a long-held family secret. 

The story is told using two equally compelling narratives:  Kate, a young woman in 2015 who is studying to become one of the top wine experts in the world and the other narrative uses bits and pieces from an old diary that Kate finds while cleaning out the basement in her family's ancestral home in their vineyard in Beaune, France. 

It's through this second POV that readers get a bird's eye view into the French Resistance and the harsh backdrop of German occupied France. The indignities, abuse and horrors that French locals lived through for years are vividly portrayed and Mah doesn't hold back as she educates readers on how female collaborators (or merely suspected collaborators) were treated after the war.

This book easily makes one of my top picks for 2018 so far. You don't have to be a Dionysus groupie to enjoy this well-crafted Historical Fiction read. This is an engrossing story about perseverance, the tenacity of the human spirit and family in all its complicated variations. 

If you'll only be reading one Historical Fiction this summer, let it be this one.