Corse, France
14/07/2023
Friday marked our day of return. The goal was to continue our crossing of the mainland until we reached the east coast, turning northbound there to Bastia, where our ferry would leave the next morning.
Chapter 1: Macro
Before parting from our wonderful campsite, I went around with my camera to take some shots of the charming nature surrounding us.
This included sneaking up to plants with my tripod, setting up camp like some National Geographic photographer on a budget and waiting for insects to come and say hi. This is usually not the type of photography I focus on, but it was an exciting experience.
Chapter 2: Downhill
Once ready, the usual ritual of packing up began. We followed the path from the day before, taking us down the hill to a beautiful scenery. I also made sure to follow the Landy by drone for an even more unique perspective.
I ended up flying near the car even when driving through the forest, which went well until it didn’t. That is, I looked up from my controls and out of the car window for a second, during which time I did not adjust course and flew right into a tree at about 3 meters height. Fortunately though, after a short shock on my end, the drone was fine. Moreover, I was lucky that it was nearby when it crashed… it would have been quite frustrating walking hundreds of meters up or down a hill to search the bush…
Chapter 3: Refreshment & Refreshments
Once out of the forest, we were back on the country road crossing the island. This took us mostly eastward, coming by a small bridge with a river flowing underneath. As the hot air was quite noticeable, this offered a welcome cool-down. We thus stopped and cooled off in the water for a few minutes.
As the trip had made us hungry, we then started scouting for restaurants on Google Maps until we ended up at L’Ortu Di Rotani, which featured surprisingly fancy food and wine, with much of the produce coming from the owner’s garden.
Chapter 4: The Flatlands
An hour and a half later, we were back on our way. The mountains were behind us and the land got less hilly as we made our way towards the ocean.
Before turning north towards Bastia, I wanted to make a stop at a vineyard to sample some wines and maybe take some home. As ChatGPT describes,
Wine cultivation in Corsica has a rich history dating back over 2,500 years, influenced by Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. The island’s unique terroir, with its mountainous terrain, coastal winds, and Mediterranean climate, fosters diverse grape varieties like Niellucciu, Sciaccarellu, and Vermentino. Corsican wines are known for their bold flavors and distinctive minerality. The island has nine AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protégée) wine regions, each showcasing Corsica’s blend of traditional methods and modern techniques, producing both red, white, and rosé wines with increasing international acclaim.1
I was thus quite interested in getting to know some of these wines, so I found Domaine de Terra Vecchia, a well-reviewed vineyard along our route. We stopped there and tried some of the wines. They were good, but not excellent for grape varieties with such a long history.
As I was quite surprised to learn, despite the high quality of grapes which would make for great wines to store for a few years, the low production due to the small amount of cultivated terrain means most of the wine is bought and consumed within little time of production. For this reason, the guy at the vineyard explained, do Corsican wines never develop the complex aroma they could achieve otherwise.
As I can hardly show you a picture of how the wine tasted, here’s the driveway leading up to the tasting room instead. The way I see it, the sizeable estate should yield enough wine to store at least a bit of it. But maybe I overestimate the Corsican people’s capacity for delayed gratification.
So, with only 3 bottles purchased, we followed the road northbound. A couple of times we took a right towards the ocean, only to see how comparatively boring these beaches were.
Additionally, the flatlands on Corsicas east coast are quite densely populated, which prevented us from finding a suitable offroad campsite. So with it being the last night before our ferry back to Italy, we decided to stay at a hotel near Bastia. With its pool, food and drinks this marked a luxurious end to our adventure on the island.
À la prochaine fois!
1 Prompt: “for my blog, give a very short info on wine cultivation in corsica”