2023 Comte Abbatucci, Monte Bianco, VdF

If you're not paying attention to Corsica yet, Jean-Charles Abbatucci is the reason to start. He is the island's most committed voice for biodynamic farming and indigenous varieties — grapes that exist nowhere else on earth and taste like nowhere else on earth.

The Monte Bianco is 100% Sciaccarellu, grown on a north-facing slope of white granite in the mountains above Ajaccio. That granite is the whole story. It gives the wine a smoky, peppery lift — think cracked black pepper and wild herbs — layered over bright red berries and the kind of garrigue aromatics you only get from vines surrounded by Corsican maquis: rosemary, lavender, dry scrub. It smells like the island itself.

Aged in large wooden foudres rather than small barrels, the oak here is purely structural — it builds texture without ever announcing itself. The result is silky, light on its feet, and deceptively complex. Pale in color, long on the finish, with a mineral thread running through it that keeps the wine taut and focused.

For those who often reach for Pinot Noir or Nebbiolo as reference points, and it's not wrong, but Monte Bianco is neither. It's something more singular than that, which is precisely the point.