Potential of Corsican wines highlighted at tasting

French sommelier Olivier Poussier demonstrated the ability of Corsican wines to age during a tasting at last week’s Vinisud.

With an array of white, red and sweet wines from the island, Poussier (pictured) showed how they could age and develop and lamented the fact there weren’t greater stocks of older Corsican wines available.

“The trouble is few Corsican winemakers keep wines to age and then show their great ageing potential – particularly Vermentino,” he explained.

“The flavour profile of Corsican whites changes hugely after a couple of years,” he said, “and they age really well.”

A combination of schist and granite soils and vineyards at altitude contributed to a mineral and saline character in the whites which, while lacking in acidity, retained a “pure” and “crystalline” character he argued.

“They can show positive aged characters and 10-15 years is more than possible.”

He admitted that the hot weather Corsica generally enjoys and the resulting hydric stress it places on the vines makes it harder for the red wines to attain the same potential as the heat “fixes the tannins and mean they don’t soften.

“In cooler years they’re much better – like 2014. Tourists that year complained it wasn’t as warm as usual but too bad for them! It’s much better for the wines.”

Nonetheless, Corsica only makes “two to three good red vintages [that is age worthy] every decade,” he said.

He ended with an exhortation, albeit with an acknowledgement of the difficulty of doing so – to “fight to regain” the Muscat de Cap Corse as an AOC – as it is being steadily abandoned due to the economic difficulty of producing sweet wines in a market in which they are out of fashion.

He also added he hoped to see the practice of oenothèques become more common among Corsican winemakers.