The scent of Sardinia
Anyone who has been to Sardinia knows it: there’s a scent that accompanies every walk through the hills, every morning in the vineyard, every path leading inland. It’s the scent of myrtle — intense, balsamic, resinous, unmistakable.
Myrtus communis. In Sardinian, murta, mulsta, murtizzu depending on the area. An evergreen plant of the Mediterranean scrub that has found its ideal habitat in Sardinia — and which has, over time, become one of the island's most powerful symbols.
Around our vineyards in Villasimius, myrtle grows wild among strawberry tree, cistus, and asphodel. We don't plant it: it was already there. And every year, between May and July, it’s covered in small, fragrant white flowers. Then, with autumn, come the berries — first green, then blue-violet, then almost black when fully ripe.
The plant: what myrtle is
Myrtle is an evergreen shrub, typically 1 to 3 metres tall, rarely up to 5 metres in very old specimens. It has leathery, glossy, lanceolate leaves — rich in oil glands that release that intense, balsamic aroma when brushed or crushed.
The white, fragrant flowers bloom between May and July. The berries reach their peak quality between November and January: 7-10 mm in size, ovoid in shape, the pulp rich in phenolic compounds, anthocyanins, and essential oils dominated by α-pinene, 1,8-cineole, and myrtol, which give them their characteristic aromatic notes.
Myrtle is indigenous and grows wild in Sardinia and Corsica. In other Mediterranean areas, it is mainly an introduced plant. It adapts to poor, dry ground and prefers acidic or neutral soils — exactly the conditions of our granite soils in Villasimius. It's no coincidence that myrtle is everywhere here.
A story as old as Sardinia
The name derives from the Greek myron — “fragrant essence”. In Greek mythology, myrtle was a plant sacred to Aphrodite; the poet Ovid recounts that the goddess hid behind a myrtle bush as she emerged from the sea.
In Sardinia, myrtle already had a place in daily life long before it became a liqueur. It was used as a spice for meats — game, porceddu — and as a medicinal plant for its balsamic and digestive effects. The liqueur originated in popular tradition and was passed down orally, without written recipes, for family use.
The finest legend has it that myrtle was taken to Corsica by Gallurese bandits who, fleeing the mother island, couldn't bear to leave it behind. A liqueur so bound up with identity that it became contraband.
The liqueur: red or white?
Red myrtle is the traditional and most prized — obtained from the maceration of ripe, intensely blue-violet berries. It's what most Sardinian families make at home, what’s found on the table after important meals.
White myrtle, on the other hand, is obtained from the maceration of berries that are not yet pigmented, or from the leaves of young shoots — a liqueur with very different characteristics, more herbaceous and less sweet.
The difference is visual and immediate: the red has an almost opaque, dense, enveloping ruby colour; the white is amber, lighter, more delicate.
How it's made: harvesting and maceration
The berries reach full ripeness around the end of November. From then until February, harvesting takes place — all by hand, with special combs that detach the berries without damaging the plant.
The production regulations for Mirto di Sardegna IG set rigorous criteria: berries harvested and processed exclusively in Sardinian territory, alcohol content between 28 and 36% vol, no preservatives, flavourings, or colourings.
The berries are washed, left to wilt, then immersed in ethyl alcohol for at least 15 days — often much longer in artisanal versions. At the end, it is filtered and sweetened with sugar or honey. The result is a liqueur with an intense ruby colour, and a scent that recalls exactly the moment you walk through the scrub in November.
Myrtle in the kitchen: not just liqueur
Myrtle is not only a digestif. Sardinian cuisine uses it as a seasoning to flavour meats, especially game. Porceddu cooked a carraxiu — in a pit with red-hot stones — is wrapped in myrtle and strawberry tree branches: it is precisely this very slow flavouring that gives the meat a complexity not found elsewhere. Myrtle also appears in pastry, in acqua degli angeli, and in some honeys.
Myrtle and wine: vineyard neighbours
Around our rows in Villasimius, myrtle grows freely — we don't cultivate it, we don't manage it, we don't touch it. It's there, part of the landscape, part of the ecosystem that surrounds our vineyards.
That scent of Mediterranean scrub you find in our wines — in the Vermentino, in the Cannonau, in the orange wines — also comes from here. From the plants growing around them. From the wind that carries the aromas of the scrub as it passes through the rows.
It's not poetry: it's chemistry. The terpene aromas of myrtle belong to the same family of compounds found in wines produced in Mediterranean climates. The territory is not just the soil under the roots. It's also everything that grows around them.
When you open a bottle of Colline del Vento and smell that herbaceous, balsamic note, you are also smelling myrtle. You are smelling Villasimius.
Salude e trigu.