2023-09-09 19:00:09
During the harvest, in Patrimonio (Haute-Corse), in August 2022. PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA/AFP
“Corsica is a small continent”, like to say those who cultivate vines on their island. We understand them, as the vineyard is so varied when we travel through it: grapes from the hills and small valleys of Patrimonio (Upper Corsica) in the north, large areas in the eastern plain, plots exposed on the mountainside on the Sartène side, plantations to Porto-Vecchio (Corse-du-Sud) which take advantage of the sea and its iodized influences.
Suffice to say that the aromas offered to amateurs are as diverse as they are intense, like the puzzle of terroirs, served by a complex geological formation, and the variety of autochthonous grape varieties – that is to say originating from island. Debates are also frequent between winegrowers emphasizing these endemic vines, and others favoring the terroir. Between the grapes and the earth…
“Lack of openness”
The controversy is almost identity-related in nature. It is also very concrete. Jean-Charles Abbatucci, who produces biodynamically some of the greatest wines on the island, at Domaine Comte Abbatucci, in Casalabriva, between Sartène and Ajaccio, fights to promote indigenous and ancient grapes. Logically, he inherited eighteen island grape varieties cultivated by his father, which are often found in his cuvées. But some of them are not recognized by Corsican names. So Jean-Charles Abbatucci slammed the door of the regional committee of the National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO) and, above all, he left the Corsican wine appellation. It produces its cuvées in “vin-de-france” and can no longer even write “Corsica” on its labels. A height, he laughs, for a cantor of“historical agriculture” and local.
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“This lack of openness of appellations worries meconfides Jean-Charles Abbatucci. You have to know how to evolve by leaving the door wide open to old grape varieties. These have existed in Corsica for three thousand years, and you cannot use them freely! » This winemaker, judging the existing appellations “non-representative”, happily uses these endemic vines: no less than seven (morescola, morescono, aleatico, carcajolo nero, montanaccia, sciaccarello and niellucio) to compose the magnificent red “Imperial Minister”. The sixty-year-old alert seeks to perfect the quality of its wines and the health of its vines by spraying sea water on certain plots, in order to avoid sulfur and copper.
The president of the Corsican Interprofessional Wine Council, Eric Poli, does not share Jean-Charles Abbatucci’s opinion. Yes to the three indigenous grape varieties which “are at the base of Corsican viticulture” – the niellocio, the sciaccarello and the vermentino – but keep only a very limited place for dozens of others, so as not to “to lose the common thread of the characteristics [du] vineyard ». For Eric Poli, at the head of Clos Alivu, in the patrimonio appellation, and of Domaine Poli, in Linguizzetta, on the eastern coast, appellations are good and you have to respect their rules: they are “guarantees of quality” and make it possible to produce wines at the same time “rooted” and distinct from each other.
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