AN INCONVENIENT FRUIT (CWG, 2014) 

"Rooted in the terroir but driven by character, this grape story is as gripping as a thriller.” —Timothy Taylor, author of Stanley Park (Giller finalist)

"An international detective story grafted onto a rootstock of love and loss." —Arno Kopecky, author of The Oil Man and the Sea (Governor General’s finalist)

My first book — AN INCONVENIENT FRUIT: ONE WINEMAKING FAMILY'S PURSUIT OF AN INTOXICATING, DOOMED GRAPE — is a half-drunk and entirely true love story about wine, roots, bugs, death, and magic.

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It's an original e-book, which means that no trees were killed nor ink spilled in the making of this story. And it's best consumed in a single sitting, on the digital platform of your choice — Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Kobo, smartphone, or just a plain old computer. Crack open a nice bottle of wine and try not to spill any on the keyboard while you read. I promise you'll have a fun time.

From the publisher:

The most exquisite fruit-bearing plant that civilization has ever known — vitis vinifera, the grapevine that gives us wine — has been on life support for 150 years. Menaced by an unstoppable root-killing parasite named phylloxera, the chardonnays and pinot noirs and rieslings of the world survive today only by being grafted, Frankenstein-style, onto the trunks of hardier species. So what could compel a small cluster of renegade winemakers to risk everything and grow a grape on its own endangered roots?

Propelled by an encounter with one adventurous winemaking family — the Cobbs of California — sommelier and National Magazine Award-winning journalist Andrew Braithwaite embarks on a half-drunk journey through France, Oregon, Germany, and the wild Sonoma coast. His mission: to discover what motivates an exceptional cast of characters to put their vineyards on the line for a bottle of something special and true.

By turns breezily funny and deeply moving, An Inconvenient Fruit is an original and enchanting debut about grapes, vines, bugs, death, and magic. But it’s also, at its roots, a love story. And with each sip of these rare and star-crossed wines, shared with the determined mavericks who’ve crafted them against all odds, Braithwaite stumbles towards the answer to one of life’s most intoxicating mysteries: what are we really tasting when we drink wine?