Is this man the most pretentious winemaker in the world?

There are a lot of pretentious people in the wine industry but Tullio Masoni might just be the king of the castle.

Masoni sells bottles of his sangiovese wines for €5000 ($7230) each - but doesn't want customers to drink them.

He says his wines are made from the "smallest vineyard in the world" and the grapes are fed on "eggs, bananas, seaweed and nightingale droppings'.

The trelisses in his vineyard - which is actually the 20sq metre rooftop of a historic building - are artworks by a local sculptor and you can't buy his wines in a shop, or a cellar door, but in an art gallery.

Masoni is a former investment banker (I said banker), who recently attracted the attention of CNN.

They described his bottles as "some of the most exclusive wine in the world".

The rooftop vineyard - Via Mari 10 - sits above a 16th-century palazzo in Reggio Emilia.

Masoni did once inherit a real vineyard but considered the hard work and the expense and sold it.

Via Mari 10 apparently yields only 30 bottles of red wine a year, which are sold in nearby art gallery Bonioni Arte.

"My wine is a form of artistic expression, a philosophical provocation, something to keep in your living room so you can chat about it with your friends and tell them about the lunatic who put a vineyard on his rooftop," Masoni told CNN.

"My grapes grapple art as soon as they're born."

The wine is aged in oak barrels that are also sculptures by another local artist.

"I'm the only wine producer in the world who says you shouldn't drink his wine," Masoni said.

If that is not silly enough, Masoni offered CNN some tasting notes: "At the first sip you get a lot of perplexity, but after a few seconds something comes alive in your palate that opens up your mind to a new dimension," he said.

The website says: "The ViaMari10 has no contamination with other wines of normal production, it is a seducer that tries to attract seduce with the eddies that form in the glass when it is poured. It is a vehicle of seduction in the noble sense of the word."

Rightie ho.

If you want to know more, or are tempted to buy an "artwork", visit https://www.viamari10.it/