Classical music, ice, and wells. A book shows the quirkiest wines in the world.

From night harvests to the "wine of peace," which gathers more than 600 grape varieties from all over the world, to the 15-metre-high grapevines in Italy (such as the "alberate" of Asprinio di Aversa) and Portugal, to the ice wines of Quebec, to the wine from the Gobi Desert, to the double harvests made possible by Taiwan's climate. And then the December 31st harvests, vineyards treated with classical music, a type of Bordeaux with "carbonic snow," a sparkling wine whose bottle everyone can open to add yeast themselves, wine aged at the bottom of a 75-metre-deep well. And perhaps the strangest of all: the vine that crosses a wall several kilometres long. These are some of the most curious but not the only unusual and rare wine productions featured in the Atlas of Unusual Wines, the new book by Pierrick Bourgault published by Jonglez, an international publishing house that releases books in multiple languages in 40 countries around the world (in 2016, Bourgault also authored "Unusual Wines").

The strangest wines and beyond

The text and photographs guide readers to discover secret wines and extremely unique techniques, such as those of the amateur winemaker, the man who "talks" to his vines, and wines stored underwater. In short, a volume that will appeal to those who resist conformity, fans of the strangest wines, but not just for them. The book is the result of thirty years of travels across five continents and uses clear and accessible language for everyone, covering both classic practices and the most unusual ones. The author, Pierrick Bourgault, after his education in agricultural engineering and anthropology, embarked on a journey to explore winemakers from all over the world.

Unusual Wine

His goal: listen to their stories, try to understand the peculiarities of their regions, grape varieties, and markets. But above all, observe the extraordinary coexistence between plants and people, the whims of climate, nature, and its laws, with a special focus on unusual wines, a topic for which he has already won the OIV (International Organization of Vine and Wine) award in the Wines and Territory category, as well as the first prize in France at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards and the Grand Prix du Livre Spirit in the Gourmand Libraries category. As a journalist, Pierrick Bourgault has won the Grand Prize of the Afja (French Association of Agricultural Journalists) for his reports from Iraq and has authored around fifty articles on bistros, wines, photography, and life stories.

by Andrea Cuomo