A fun story about honor, tradition, and evil Nazis. A slightly slow start rallies into some fun and interesting characters and a fun plot that moves along at a good clip. The last quarter could have done with being slightly accelerated once we have a good idea of how the story is moving. The female characters are also poorly portrayed (or not at all) but that may have been expected in a book about rural Italy, set in WW2, published in 1966. Overall, a perfectly enjoyable 3-stars.

One of the best stories ever told!

Wow. There is so much to like about this book.

It starts off a little dry and old school. After a few chapters it hits its stride though.
Well developed characters and great pacing. Surprising suspenseful. Machiavelli is worked well into the story.

Not that I have anything to go on, but it feels that this book captured what a small hillside Italian town was like back in the 1940s.

One thing that really disappoints me after finishing it is that book isn't as real as the introduction or parts of the book make it out to be. Googling revealed almost nothing about the story behind this book. I could find a lot about the movie from 1969 but little about anything else. It's a long book and bit of it explains the materials found that go into telling the story behind the story. This whole conceit isn't needed. An omniscient narrator would have lead to a come compact book.

I read this book decades ago and re-read it this week. It holds up well. It's a funny, ribald story, but also has poignant moments. And it's sort of surreal, maybe like Saul Bellow. Nothing in the story is impossible, but it's a fantasy nonetheless. It's not out-there in the way that Garcia Lorca has magical moments that can't actually happen. Here, it's superstition and religion (which, in my opinion, are the same thing) that lead people to believe things happen because supernatural forces have ordained them.

Anyway, the story is as follows. It takes place near the end of WWII, with the Germans in retreat and Italy the place where the Allies are making daily inroads. An isolated Italian village, little changed since the 15th century (no cars, 1 hour or less of electricity per day), is taken over by a small band of retreating Germans. Perched on a remote hilltop, the town is famed for its wine, and the residents decide to hide most of their inventory from the Germans. Whether the Germans will find it is the primary plot of the story -- and the captain who is leading the Germans decides to use kindness to get the wine, rather than violence and cruelty. So for a WWII book, it's relatively light-hearted.

The book's strengths lie in the descriptions of the townspeople and the lives they lead. There's Bombolini, the wine merchant and local "clown," who becomes mayor on the day the town celebrates the capture of Mussolini (a few days before the Germans arrive). There's Fabio, the local scholar, who's told that books are damaging his mind, when it's really his heart that's damaged by the love for Bombolini's daughter Angela. There's Turo, a soldier returned from the front, who becomes the lover of Malatesta, the most beautiful woman the town ever produced, who had moved away to a cosmopolitan life (and even training as a doctor), until her husband died young. And there's von Prum, the German captain, son of wealth in Germany, who reads Nietsche and believes he's too good to stoop to the violence of his peasant-ancestry commander. And more.

You hear the participants' motivations, and you see them in all their contradictions. Malatesta is haughty and cares for no one, but then makes immense sacrifices to save Turo's life. There's the cobbler, who hates everyone, and happily goes to his death to save the town. There's Bombolini, the clown, the fool, who rises to the occasion as the mayor, reading and interpreting Machiavelli whenever he gets into a pinch. And so on.

And there's the wine. The author does a wonderful job of explaining how much the people of Santa Vittoria loved their wine, how the cultivation of it ruled their lives, how it meant more to them than life itself. The joyous descriptions (and funny) of drinking, the harvest festival, the Pissing Turtle fountain, and so much more, make you feel as if there really could be a town like that. And that if there was a town like that, people would be happy to stay in it, rather than deal with the complexities of the fully modern world. Why should you deal with war when you can deal with wine?

This story is set during World War II.
Santa Vittoria is an Italian town occupied by the Nazis. They try to claim one million bottles of the Santa Vittoria wine.
The townspeople gather together, under a bumbling mayor and despite their differences, make the wine disappear. I found this story to be slow to start, but a few chapters in it becomes easier to read. There's humor mixed with determination, fear and a final compromise that teaches forgiveness.

I have read this a few times and have always enjoyed the tale. Great character development, a great plot and well written.

3.5 rounded down.

The storyline is undoubtedly entertaining and captivating. Some bits are pretty dark, but coming from a Stephen King fan it wasn’t unbearable. I was however slightly turned off by some of the projections of different human beings, and am glad to have seen some of those stylings peter out over the last 50+ years since this was written.

That said, the characterization, psychological aspects, and storytelling were great, and made for a pretty easy read.

I saw the film starring Anthony Quinn & Anna Magnani which was based on this book years ago and hadn't thought of it in ages until a co-worker and I were talking about stories set in Italy and this came up.

I have to say the book started off slowly and I felt like I was getting bogged down in the routine every day life of a small town where they make wine and nothing else happens. And then they find out the Germans are coming to take all the wine back to Germany. The story takes off at that point as the villagers plan what to do; and the interactions between Mayor Bombolini and Captain von Prum changed my whole perception of the book. Even with the slow beginning what happens after earns this book a well deserved 5 stars from me. And a celebratory glass of Italian red. Cin Cin!

A slightly whimsical and meandering start got me wondering what I was actually reading, but the strands all soon wove together and I was in the midst of a delightful and comic tale, about wartime resistance, human nature and wine.

Adroitly mixing historical reality with fictional endeavors, this is a really lovely and escapist story, which I am sure brings back memories for anyone who has traveled in this region, while creating a perfect and vivid backdrop for anyone who has not yet done so - but will want to after reading this.

Great characters, sublime plot, super read.

A bumbling, hilarious, over-the-top and pitch perfect gem of a read. The story of a small town in Italy that goes to extraordinary lengths to protect it's wine- the purpose of the town's (and it's inhabitants) very existence- during a German occupation towards the end of World War II. Laugh out loud funny. Hard to find, but if you can, it's absolutely worth getting.

This book tells the story of one town in Italy, and all the wine it produces.

Word gets around, and one day during the Second World War the Nazis appear, hell bent on depriving these villagers of their wine.

Well, the Nazis look high and low, but they never find the million or so bottles of wine that the townspeople have hidden somewhere where the Germans cannot find.

Bombolini, the mayor of this town, is referred to as the stupidest, thickest, dullest person there is, but when it comes time to reveal if there is any "Wine to be had," he is pretty damn funny.

The Germans leave without finding the million bottles of wine.

Five stars. Richard says definitely check this one out.

I love this book - a crazy story about a crazy town that I will definitely remember for a long time to come. It took a little bit to figure out all the characters, but worth it once I did.