Agricultural activities
It is not unusual to cross paths with tractors returning from the fields. Spring is the time for cutting hay, extracting honey, and harvesting immortelle flowers.
Howerver, each season brings its share of work including olive tree pruning and harvesting, or olives pressing. Fall is dedicated to grazing and plowing, and picking berries and mushrooms. And finally, winter is the time to cut firewood, harvest mandarins, and weed the garden; a season to let the soil rest.
Livestock farming
The Valley has always belonged and still belongs today to the sherpherds. The Domain is overflowing with animals. You will admire cows and horses quenching their thirst in the Ortolo River, beautiful and local breeds such as brown Aubrac grazing in the fields, sheeps standing out on green meadows, partridges and pheasants flying away, wild boar piglets crossing fields and disappearing in the maquis shrubland, mallards shaking themselves over a pond, and in the morning bovids sunbathing on the beach.
See more photosVegetable garden
The garden is Pierrot's kingdom, in which he grows a large variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs including rosemary, basil, strawberries, eggplants, zucchinies, cluster tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, squash, cabbage and other winter vegetables, lemons, and mandarins. Get a basket and help yourself!
See more photosHoney House
In spring, honey is collected throughout the whole maquis, stretching out from the sea to the mountain. It then reflects all the complexity of the scrubland flowers displaying mainly white heath, French lavender, and broom aromas.
In autumn, collection starts in November, stretching from the coastline to the mountain. This honey, made among other from strawberry tree, ivy, sarsaparilla, and false yellow head, reveals a typical mild bitterness and distinctive wood aromas.
Dairy
Whether it is called Brocciu, Brocciu Passu or Tome, the cheese made in Murtoli comes from a herd of 500 goats peacefully grazing on the domain. This Corsican breed has been bred for centuries to produce cheese. Today it is still essential to the island's agropastoral activity.
Murtoli's farm produces its own fresh Brocciu A.O.P., Brocciu Passu A.O.P. – slightly refined – and smoked Tome Sartenaise, which following our traditions, is carefully rubbed with olive oil by our shepherds, and left for ripening in a cheese cave from 6 to 12 months.
Delicatessen
Along with the cheese, the most emblematic product of the island remains its delicatessen.
In Corsica, the breeding of pigs is an ancestral pastoral tradition based on an endemic Corsican breed called « Nustrale ». Swines are raised in the wilderness, feeding on the mountains' natural ressources and following the natural pace of the seasons. In autumn, the hogs head to the chestnut and oak groves to find acorns and chestnuts fallen on the ground.
Murtoli relentlessly thrives to highlight the island's traditions and produce, working exclusively with trustworthy local producers, guarantors of the ancestral know-how.
You will taste the Prisuttu - local dry ham, Coppa, Lonzu and other Panzetta delicately served on an olive tree board, or in winter the Figatellu slowly grilled in the fireplace.