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Le Clos Fornelli is a family estate of about thirty hectares located on the southern foothills of Castagniccia, in the municipalities of Tallone and Linguizzetta.
Originating from Boziu (the village of Mazzola), my ancestors Ghiseppu and Saveriu Vanucci settled in a place called E Pedraghje ('rocky place') in the lower Bravona valley and practiced transhumance with their flocks of sheep between these two 'worlds'. It is here that they settled permanently and planted their first vines, complementing a small vineyard that had existed for two centuries in the area.
The agropastoral civilization was then marked by seasons and rituals.Thus, ‘a muntagnera’ (summer transhumance) took place the day after May 12th, after the celebration of San Brancaziu (Saint Pancras, patron saint of shepherds), on the site of the small chapel located near our vineyards. While the return from Boziu, for the grape harvest, took place on September 17th, after San Ciprianu (Saint Cyprian, the patron saint feast of Mazzola).
Grape varieties planted in 1932 Malvasia (vermentinu), Sciavone (Paga Debiti), Elegante (Grenache), Niellucciu. The wine produced on-site by my great-uncle Ziu Saveriu was partly sold locally to individuals, small merchants, and in cellars in Bastia. It was of course consumed within the family and shared at the large tables of the traditional shepherds tundera (sheep shearing) with friends who came to participate in the day.
After a ten-year career as an air traffic controller abroad, Don Marcel, my father, returned to Corsica in 1964 to work on the family farm before being able to develop his own vineyard. He would later face what he described fifty years later as "an incredible humiliation" to obtain planting rights on his plots, the administration of the time imposed on him, against his will, the planting of foreign grape varieties. France wanted to reconstitute in Corsica a large part of the poor quality wines from the lost territories of Algeria. The settlers in charge of large estates in North Africa, partly relocated to Corsica, were tasked with converting traditional Corsican viticulture into industrial viticulture. Corsican vineyards went from 5000ha to over 30,000ha in a very short time.
Adulterated wines, poor quality, financial shenanigans orchestrated by big merchants, led to an inevitable crisis, culminating in the 'events of Aléria' in 1975. This situation plunged Corsican viticulture into absolute chaos. Massive uprooting marked this period of excessive industrialization of Corsican viticulture.
There is no evil without good coming out of it. Some Corsican winemakers chose after this to revive Corsican viticulture from its ashes, relying on what is its strength today: its grape varieties. To support them in this reconquest (Riacquistu), they chose to establish an autonomous viticultural research center that still exists today: the CRVI.
From 1972 onwards, my father replanted the grape varieties he had always known on the family estate. Malvasia, Niellucciu, and then Sciaccarellu reconstituted the backbone of the estate.