Wine synonymous with redemption for inmates, who, in Gorgona vineyard, cultivate future

Wine as a tool for cohesion, sociality and the future, thanks to a project that means inclusion. For some years now, Gorgona, is no longer famous only for being the last island-prison in Italy, and the only one in Europe, born more than a century and a half ago, back in 1869, but, since 2012, it is also, and above all, “The Island that exists”, thanks to a project that sees, at the forefront, Marchesi Frescobaldi, in which wine is a tool of redemption, because in life you can always change and start again. At Gorgona, inmates spend the last period of their sentence, working in contact with nature to develop professional skills that facilitate reintegration into the working and social reality.
Around a small vineyard, in the heart of an amphitheater overlooking the sea, the project starts, whose goal is to allow inmates, regularly salaried by Marchesi Frescobaldi, to gain concrete and active experience in the field of viticulture, with the collaboration and supervision of the Tuscan winery’s agronomists and enologists. With the possibility of entering to work in the Marchesi Frescobaldi Estates even after the detention period, as professionals in the field. The vineyard has an extension of 2.3 hectares, including an initial one and just over a second planted in 2015. This is Frescobaldi’s Social Project in Gorgona, created as a collaboration between the historic Italian wine family (which has been making wine for more than 700 years in Tuscany) with the prison house in the Tuscan archipelago, and celebrating harvest no. 12, by presenting, as per tradition, to celebrate the beginning of summer, the wine “Gorgona”, the white Vermentino and Ansonica vintage 2023, produced by Frescobaldi together with the inmates of the penal colony as another chance that smells of the future, learning a trade, spending time profitably and laying the groundwork for one’s tomorrow. From this vineyard of Vermentino and Ansonica comes the white wine Gorgona, the fruit of the uniqueness of the place, the work of man and a symbol of hope and freedom. The first Harvest was 2012 and since then the wine has been produced together with the inmates for a total of 9,000 bottles per year.
The Gorgona label aims to be the “extraordinary edition” of the island, telling each year a different aspect of it: for 2023 the focus is on the wind or rather of the winds that blow here playing a primary role in daily life. The four winds, Grecale, Scirocco, Libeccio and Maestrale become fundamental elements in the island's viticulture by affecting the air temperature and, therefore, the ripening of the grapes. A vineyard planted in 1999, and subsequently in 2015 and 2018, where the Vermentino and Ansonica varieties have always been the undisputed protagonists. A project that denotes a clear vision. Frescobaldi per il sociale was born in August 2012; even before being a wine, it is a multi-year project that is the result of a collaboration with the Management of the Colonia Penale, whose goal is to allow inmates to gain concrete and active experience in the field of viticulture. Under the supervision of Frescobaldi’s agronomists and winemakers, the inmates brought back to production and cultivated one hectare of vineyard on the island, which has been added to over the years by 1.3 hectares planted by Frescobaldi.
“Gorgona 2023, harvest No. 12, allows us to experience a project that makes us more proud every year” - explained Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of Marchesi Frescobaldi - “in Gorgona there is the "uniqueness" of this island and of a project that with the production of a very small number of bottles never ceases to give emotions. We have the opportunity to experience this extraordinary land that conveys everything through its scents and flavors: the love for the island, the care and passion of man, the hope for a better life, the influence of the sea and a wonderful environment. They are little more than two hectares of vineyard and give life to an inimitable and exclusive wine that is a symbol of hope and freedom that is increasingly amplified around the world. Proud to be living this project since 2012”.