It's Time You Got High via
The Corsican Connection.
Raise your hand if you want a high-scoring, biodynamically farmed
Corsican red... for the best price on earth?
2017 Clos Venturi
Corse Rouge
Wine Advocate: 91 points!
Normally: $40+.
Our price: $35 for 1. Buy here.
Only $31 for 6. Buy here.
And only $27 on 12! Buy here!
(33% off the normal price!)
TL;DR: Try one of the greatest winemakers from Corsica, Manu Venturi... whose earthy and deep, high-altitude, biodynamically farmed "Clos Venturi" regularly garners some of the island's highest scoring reviews (it recently earned a 95 from the hard-scoring Decanter!)... for less money than you can buy it for in Europe!!! (Lovers of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and sexy Tuscan Sangioveses, take heed!)
Exactly 50 years ago today? A film came screeching, comet-like, into the American consciousness: William Friedkin's The French Connection, the tale of a porkpie-behatted cop who follows his hunch through the wintry Brooklyn streets... toward a gazillion-dollar bust of Corsican goodies!
Some focus on how the movie made its then unknown actor, Gene Hackman, into an Oscar winner and perma-star. Others will just call it the greatest cop film of the 20th century, and/or claim its visceral chase scene as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Cinema.
Some people will do *anything* for high-altitude Niellucciu
Us? We see it, naturally, as the ur-story of how a phenomenal, mind-bending Corsican export... can encounter difficulty in finding its place on the American market! (Okay, we didn't have to smuggle the high-scoring, biodynamically farmed wonderment that is "Clos Venturi" to Vintage Berkeley in a Buick... but we would have!)
Now, you can't call a wine that's served at some of the greatest restaurants on earth an "underdog" — but for all of its inarguable greatness, it remains a relatively undersung category on our shores; many of the same people who happily pay twice the price for the Chateauneuf-du-Papes it echos, and/or thrice the price for the Tuscan reds it evokes, have never had a great Corsican red! So: what makes these wines some of the greatest and most fascinating on the planet?
Not Shangri-La: this is Clos Venturi
1) Start with: an obsession with Corsica itself: a landscape so gorgeous that even cynical Frenchies have to give it up, and just go ahead and call it the Ile de Beauté ("Island of Beauty"), and one of the greatest, if still freakishly unknown, wine regions in the world. Rugged, wild and mountainous, it's situated just south of the South of France and just west of Italy's Tuscan coast... and the wines behave like it.
2) Insert: a soupçon of enigma: the island of Corsica has vineyards and grapes that go back millennia (the Phoenicians were knocking wine back here in 500 years before Caesar showed up!), and deliver wines that are rich, structured and sensuous... made from varieties with names that only a Corsican can pronounce with confidence: Niellucciu! Sciaccarellu! Carcaghiolu Neru! (God bless you!)
3) Add: one of the most special producers on the island: Clos Venturi. Run by the young and indefatigable Emmanuel "Manu" Venturi, this is not just one of the few handful of biodynamic winemakers on the entire island... it's also the only Corsican vineyard that's not situated along Corsica's coast! It sits in the very middle of the island, nestled in the high foothills (almost 1500 feet above sea level) of even higher, nigh-Fuji-esque mountain peaks.
Clos Venturi, crepusculating
From the beginning, Manu's devoted himself to replanting varieties lost to time — not just Corsica's most famous mainstays, Nielluciu and Sciaccarrellu — but also Aletico, Minustrellu, Moresconu, Biancu Gentile, Riminese, Genovese, and Carcaghjolu Neru, O My! Vines are planted on a base of pink granite and schist, covered by sedentary rock and orange sandstone. This is as wild as the vinoverse gets, with terroir that makes for wines unlike any others the world over.
And Manu's 2017 Clos Venturi Corse Rouge shows it off in high style! A blend of biodynamically farmed and hand-picked Niellucciu (50%), Sciaccarellu (40%) and Carcaghjolu Neru (the rest), it's a naturally made beaut, fermented with natural yeast and bottled without fining or filtering.
What's it like? Imagine your favorite herb-laced Chateauneuf-du-Papes, with an extra dollop of Syrah; or maybe a sunshine-laden Chianti Classico, from one of the best producers in the region; but then? Turn the kaleidoscope, because this is uniquely itself.
Earthy and deep, with notes of blackcurrant, blackberry, and violets on the nose... but it's the scent of rosemary, menthol, and wild Mediterranean herbs that you notice most of all. Manu is quick to note this: "the most amazing signature of our [Corsican] wines is the amazing aromatic quality, the sense of wild smells from the maquis, the heathland of herbs and plants that surround our vineyards."
On the palate, there are black olives, Bing cherries, a stony minerality, and a wild herbaceousness that's even more palpable on the tongue than it was on the nose. Soft, velvety tannins and a long finish complete the whole, and make this as perfect a fall-into-winter red as any in the shop; think herb-encrusted lamb chops, peppercorn steaks, and/or a roast vegetable timbale. (Also, as great as it is out of the gate, the wine unfurls wondrously as it opens to air; we had one open for three days, and it kept revealing new facets of itself!)
The Clos Venturi farming team
Thoroughbred Corsican reds on the order of Clos Venturi can easily reach into the $70- 100 range — so even at its normal price of ~$40, Clos Venturi's a steal of a Mediterranean red.
But when offered up at 12% off on bottle #1 (i.e., the best price in the US!)... over 22% off on the 6-pack (i.e., a price lower than you can get this wine for in France!)... and 33% off on the case? This is one of the most absurd values in red wine you'll see all year! (Please obey all traffic laws en route to the store!)
2017 Clos Venturi
Corse Rouge
Wine Advocate: 91 points.
Normally: $40+.
Our price: $35 for 1. Buy here.
Only $31 for 6. Buy here.
And only $27 on 12! Buy here!
(That's 33% off the normal price...
and less than you can find it for anywhere in Europe!)