Coppa di Corsica — Cured Neck and Shoulder AOP

Corsica, France — island-wide, with notable production in Alta Rocca and Niolu valleys.

Coppa di Corsica is the island's cured neck-shoulder, pressed into a cylindrical form and hung for a minimum five months. The cut — the collar from behind the head through the first rib — is prized for its marbling: concentric rings of lean and intramuscular fat that, when sliced, reveal a rose-and-ivory mosaic. The cure begins with a dry-rub of sea-mineral-salt, black-pepper, dried myrtle berries, and maquis-herb blend, applied for ten to fourteen days. The neck is then washed, dried, and encased in natural pig bladder or gut before hanging. During the five-month minimum cure the fat slowly softens and the collagen in the neck muscle relaxes, giving coppa di Corsica its characteristic yielding texture — firmer than an Italian coppa but less dense than prisuttu. The myrtle-berry component of the rub is distinctively Corsican: myrtle (Myrtus communis) grows throughout the island's maquis and contributes a resinous-sweet note absent from mainland Italian or Ligurian coppas. AOP since 2012.

• Capicola/Capocollo (Italian mainland — Genoese cognate, different herb profile)
• Coppa piacentina DOP (Italian — similar cut, wine-based rub contrast)

Rose-and-ivory marbled cross-section; myrtle-resin sweet note; yielding intramuscular fat; richer and rounder than lonzu, cleaner than prisuttu.