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	story Alex Eberspaecher   photographs Judy Eberspaecher It wasn’t a deep crater as far as bomb craters go, perhaps only as deep as I am tall, but somewhat wider. Yet it destroyed quite a few rows of grape vines and only now, slightly more than eight years later, wild raspberry bushes and other weeds are regaining a foothold. “There were seventeen,” Mirolub tells me. “We managed to fill in a few this spring and with any luck by next year we can plant grape vines again.” Not since I was a child growing up among the vineyards of Germany at the end of the war did I see such needless destruction. But then again, wars seldom make sense to me. As far back as the Middle Ages it was common knowledge among vintners that sending rockets into the electrically charged thunderclouds could sometimes divert the clouds and thus save the vineyard from devastating hail damage. The technology has never been adequately proven, and even today rockets are still occasionally used as they certainly were in Yugoslavia this fateful spring day in 1999. Mirolub Cilic was never a soldier either, but as the winemaker of NAVIP, a large winery in Belgrade, he looks after the well-being of his 1100 hectares of vineyards that are located among the gently rolling hills near Leskovac. Located about 200 kilometres south of Belgrade, Leskovac is a small city of less than 80,000 inhabitants, many of them farmers who work in the surrounding landscape. The winemaker doesn’t remember the exact date in 1999, but he tells me it was after NATO invaded the country, perhaps some time during mid-spring just after the new grape leaves had emerged. The day had looked promising at first, a typical spring day in the Balkans, warm and sunny. By mid-afternoon, rather dark and threatening clouds had moved in from the west. Perhaps hail was in the offing and that would have had a disastrous effect on the fresh and tender buds. Perhaps rockets should be used, simple rockets, just like a hundred years ago. These were rockets that had to be ignited with a match. Although he tells me today that he had forgotten all about the fighting, he thinks now that it was not a good idea back then after all. High above the vineyards of Leskovac, much higher than the dark ominous clouds, a very sophisticated NATO radar plane detected the first rocket almost immediately and transmitted an urgent message to headquarters. With military precision, two heavily armed fighters were instantly dispatched and by the time the sixth rocket had been launched by the farmers, the first heat-seeking missile was on its way to destroy the twenty year old Riesling vines.   Two or three more passes, and sixteen more craters later, the mission was a success, even if it had cost nearly a million dollars. At military command centre the mission would be described to the international press later on that day as a successful sortie. Well, it was only a partial success. After we crawl out of that muddy crater, Mirolub leads me to a large water tank that had been blown off the foundation by the last missile, ending up in a small creek a hundred meters down the hill, while strategically taking out a small plum tree and two more rows of grapes along the way. So much for this year’s plum brandy. There is also a smile on Mirolub’s face now as he calmly explains, “Those hotshot pilots missed my best Pinot Noir grapes with the last one!” Even before the war, this Balkan country was in turmoil more often than not, but the locals seldom cared about politics and borders, let alone names of their fractured country. If I can believe what I have been told during recent visits, they even got along reasonably well most of the time, among themselves. In spite of this historic unrest, the old Republic of Yugoslavia had become a major producer of quality wines after the Turks left during the latter part of the 18th century and the tastes of their exquisite fruits and vegetables have become legendary and are used as a measure of quality by other countries. One cellar that I visited, recently shipped over 20 million litres of red wine each year before 1999 to a German winery, mostly for blending with other wines to create the top selling Amselfelder  red wine, only to lose that lucrative market over the recent conflict. In my estimation, today only about 20% of all vineyards are still in production while many are still neglected, as are countless fruit orchards and fields, which are slowly being reclaimed by nature. Politics and war have never been my interest and I most certainly would not like to sit in judgment over that dubious conflict. In people and their history though I have a passion, and that of course includes the local foods and especially wine, the noblest of all foods. Before the conflict of 1999, there was some enthusiasm for a future among the people of the former Yugoslavia and there was most certainly an outstanding quality of agricultural produce and wine that was among the best anywhere. Tourism was booming and although the hordes from the north, with their shiny new cars, had bypassed most of the countryside forever on their way to the southern part of the Adriatic, the few that had stopped off along the way, perhaps to ask for directions or to buy something at a local store, were very much appreciated and most welcomed. By the late 1990s, in spite of some internal problems, there was an air of optimism and then there was nothing. After 76 days of war, Yugoslavia was once again in shambles. The vineyards were abandoned and the fields lay bare. There was a defeatist attitude among the people and sadly, nobody cared anymore. Few other countries have been invaded more often and certainly no other country was so diverse in culture and religion. Today much of the old Yugoslavia is Serbia and all Serbs still wonder what happened to them in 1999, but more so, why? Cities like Belgrade are slowly rebuilding their past glory, hoping perhaps for better times, yet not even the war was able to destroy the grandeur and glorious past. They are clean and very safe cities and towns, full of people, local people but few tourists. Out in the country the fields are still almost bare, but there is also hope in a few bushels of beautiful red and green peppers that are sold along the dusty roadside. My hotel, the once prestigious Hotel Yugoslavia, is open for business although the left half was bombed out and still has not been repaired. There is little or no money for paint or new carpets. The million dollar missiles did a terrific job - accurate to within a metre, four of them entered by different windows without even taking out a frame but there is little left inside. I know there were four, because last night I talked to a fourteen year old boy who told me that he and his mother were standing on the banks of the River Danube, directly behind the hotel, when the missiles came up the river, low, just a few metres over the water and then suddenly veered and destroyed the west end of the hotel. Nowadays NATO personnel, election monitors from UNESCO and whatever organizations there are around, often frequent the hotel. That’s probably not so much because of location but probably because they get a cheap rate, as the whole hotel is still somewhat in disrepair. There is still a defeatist attitude among many, but even while Mirolub, the winemaker from NAVIP, still wonders how modern jet fighters can mistake a few rows of Riesling grapes for tanks, I can see a glimmer of hope in his face. I also remember what my French friend Count Henri Rambuteau once told me as we stood in his Beaujolais vineyard, – a more privileged part of this world – marveling at the ripe and sumptuous grapes. Alex, he said, a grapevine is a Mediterranean weed with one root that will grow in spite of wars. And so, in spite of that war, as the new Serbia is still a Mediterranean country where grapes seems to flourish, there can be no doubt in my mind that much better times are just around the corner, perhaps over the hill in the next vineyard, but until then the country once again is somewhat in turmoil. Outside forces are doing their best once again to divide the country and with that I distinctively remember the cab driver, who with tears in his eyes, looked at us and asked, “Why? What have we done wrong?”  GL	ABOVE a Belgrade streetscape ABOVE checking the crops at a Leskovac vineyard ABOVE preserved archictectural grandeur in Belgrade ABOVE a welcome dance for Canadian visitors ABOVE the grand but neglected oldest house in Sremski Karlovci ABOVE ta view of Belgrade from the Danube River