Domaine Ligenda 2023 AOP Patrimonio Rouge, Corsica

The Wine

Domaine Ligenda has chosen (wisely, IMHO) to make all their wines only from native grapes of Corsica, the French island just north of Sardinia. This one is a pure varietal wine made from a grape little known in the US - Nielluccio - though it is a strain of the well-known Italian varietal, Sangiovese.

Historians believe Nielluccio was introduced to Corsica by the Genoese, whose reign ended in the mid 1700s, and it is now the most-planted varietal on the island. The island gets quite hot in the summer, and you'd be excused for assuming the wine might be a bit harsh or have over-extracted fruit notes. Not so, here. This is a delicious red wine, with surprisingly soft tannins. For a wine descended from Sangiovese, it is quite approachable while young.

Fermented in Stainless Steel tanks to keep the high-toned fruit notes intact. Then, half of the wine was aged in large casks for a year prior to bottling, a step that allowed the wine to soften into its current state of great reward.

The Winery

A map showing the shape of Corsica reminds me of a left hand held out with the index finger raised up ("We're #1!").  At the base of the "index finger peninsula" - where the knuckle would be - is the Patrimonio appellation, which extends Westward toward the hand's second knuckle. The appellation takes its name from the eponymous village at the center of this winegrowing territory, the most prestigious of Corsica's nine appellations.

And it's here in Patrimonio that the two Francks (Franck Santini and Franck Malassigne) began producing wine in 2023, using grapes from the Santini family's organically farmed vineyards first planted in the 1850s. The family's vineyards are split between the Patrimonio appellation and the generic IGP Ile de Beauté. 

The name Ligenda was inspired by the Brazilian novelist Paolo Coelho and his 1988 book The Alchemist (my brief synopsis - the treasure you seek is right at home, but a good story can be told if you encounter lots of challenges and make untold sacrifices while seeking it elsewhere!)