On your gastronomic road trip to discover Corsican specialties, discover a natural dish of choice: Corsican honey with the taste of the maquis ! Corsican honey or mele di Corsica in Corsican language is a honey produced in Corsica. This designation of origin is preserved via a protected designation of origin.
The originality of Corsican honey is expressed through its natural environment, its vegetation (wild and endemic, notably the maquis), the Corsican bee and its production resulting from ancestral traditions. It can be found under several names: spring maquis, maquis honeydew, chestnut grove, summer maquis, autumn maquis.
The range of 6 honeys in AOP Honey from Corsica – Mele di Corsica thus includes flavors from the most bitter to the sweetest, tastes sometimes delicate sometimes persistent, which take you from the clementine orchards by the sea to the chestnut trees of the mountains, in passing through the wild scrub…
The know-how of the producers is clearly visible here: they move their hives from the sea to the mountains over the seasons so that the bees can collect all the flowers that give the honeys a palette of flavors. Depending on the seasons and the location of the hives, the honey has a different name and flavor that can be found among the different producers on the island.
An AOC honey with the taste of the Corsican maquis
By moving hives from the sea to the mountains over the seasons, Corsican beekeepers harvest honey that reflects a landscape, a season, flowering and an original scent. From the sweetest to the most bitter, sometimes delicate, sometimes persistent, Corsican honeys will always delight your palate…
Corsican honeys with Controlled and Protected Designation of Origin (AOC/AOP) offer a great diversity of aromas and flavors thanks to a particular and identified terroir :
- Corsican vegetation: wild, natural with endemic species
- the Corsican bee: Corsican ecotype (Apis mellifera mellifera corsica)
- Beekeeping know-how: honey production comes from ancestral know-how inspired by the complex and varied flowering of Corsica.
The Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée “Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica”, obtained in 1998 at the national level, introduced for the first time in France the notion of “local honey”.
