Vermentino

One variety, one border, two names

Few varieties illustrate as well as this one that a wine can be "Italian by grape and French by law". Vermentino, most probably of Italian origin per VIVC, has long been settled all along the western rim of the French Mediterranean — in Corsica first, where it is called vermentinu, but also in Provence, and further still in Languedoc-Roussillon, where several cahiers des charges cite it as an accessory variety. The homologated Corsican texts themselves keep the official spelling "vermentino B", glossed "malvoisie de Corse" — a name that recalls another historical mix-up, the one linking malvoisie and muscat in several European wine regions, though no genetic link is established here between the two.

The white variety that structures the whole of Corsican viticulture

In Corsica, vermentino is nobody's understudy: it is the reference white variety, the equivalent, for whites, of what niellucciu and sciaccarello represent for reds. At Patrimonio it is the exclusive white variety. At Ajaccio it must make up at least 80% of white blends. In the regional Vin de Corse appellation, that minimum share is set at 75%. In all three cases it also appears, more discreetly, as an accessory variety for reds and rosés — a versatility few Mediterranean varieties can claim to the same degree.

A variety of dry ground and measured vigour

Pl@ntGrape describes vermentino as a variety of medium vigour, needing careful handling — short pruning, careful training to control vegetation — in hot areas, on dry, not very fertile ground. That is exactly the profile of Corsica's coastal hillsides, where wind, sunshine and poor soils impose their own discipline on the vine. The variety responds with decent resistance to grey rot, despite a more marked susceptibility to powdery mildew.

A quality white, pale and full-bodied

The wine it gives, described by Pl@ntGrape as "a quality wine, pleasant, with a lovely pale colour", pairs floral hawthorn aromas with fruity pear notes, often rounded out, on the most coastal plots, by a saline hint of sea spray that betrays the proximity of the sea. It is a balanced, full-bodied wine rather than a powerful one — a quiet elegance that explains why, from the Gulf of Porto to Bandol by way of Corbières, so many Mediterranean appellations have chosen to count it, in various capacities, among their varieties.