I love this new map of French wine regions, the Metro Wine Map of France devised by architectural theorist David Gissen of San Francisco and published by Purple pager Steve De Long of London.

Both of them studied architecture in the 1990s, which helped to build a bridge over the Atlantic. David Gissen is already highly regarded in his specialist field but has recently fallen in love with wine. His wine-related tweets can be found @100aocs.

Steve, who has already published various ingenious wine educational aids (see Wine Century Club turns one, for example,) spotted Gissen's proposed map of France along the lines of a metro or rail map via Twitter. He persuaded Gissen to allow him to publish the finished product, and within 52 days of the first draft's having been tweeted, the final proof was approved at the printers.

You can read an Atlantic interview with David Gissen entitled 'How Wine Became Metropolitan' here. It was apparently a Lapierre 2009 Morgon that lit the flame for him, at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. (I'm thrilled to have a case of this, his last vintage, in my own cellar.) Gissen is also toying with designing a concrete decanter (though I note that even he, or the Atlantic interviewer, use the word 'varietal' instead of 'variety').

You can order the map, 18 x 24 inches on heavyweight 'archival' paper, either at Amazon.com or from www.delongwine.com at $24.95, £20 or €20 a pop.