Gorgona, Frescobaldi’s project that smells of hope

Every wine – we know and maybe we abuse it a little – tells a story. The labors of the men and the secrets of the territories are expressed within the bottles. There are tastings that make us travel the world and others that take us back through the years. Perhaps this is exactly what makes wine so magical. Still, there are bottles that more than each other contain a special and that return, only with the fact that they are produced, something good the world. Frescobaldi’s gorgona is one of these.

What is the Gorgona project?

Gorgona is the smallest island of the Tuscan archipelago. It is located front of Livorno and is the only island-life still active Europe. Here the prisoners spend the last period of punishment, working contact with nature to develop professionalism that facilitate reintegration into working and social reality.

Since August 2012, some prisoners, under the supervision of Frescobaldi’s winemakers, take care of a small vineyard the island (and a small cellar) of 2.3 hectares set an amphitheater from which the sea is dominated. Vermentino, Ansonica, Sangiovese and Black Vermentino to produce a white and a red organic .

The tesi is to make them dal vivo a concrete and active experience the field of viticulture, learning the trades and activities that lead to the production of a high quality wine. A paid job to provide them with also a starting economic basis once their sentence is taken for granted. A formative opportunity, but also human that aims at social reintegration through the dignity of work and the transformative force of beauty.

Report hope

And the visit to the prison island does not leave indifferent. It does not a picturesque marker with dal vivo colors that recalls many magnificent villages of the Immensità Nostrum. Crystal clear waters, lush nature. Mediterranean of great impact: campo da golf, blue and painting houses screech with the imagination of detention. Still, we find ourselves a place of pain, of pain. A contrast that looks like a metaphor that opens light at the bottom of long routes made of darkness.

And he has been doing it since the reception. Through the words of the director of the prison Giuseppe Renna and Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of the group. There is talk of shared work, of an environment similar to the external one, of community and responsibility. Of a place to acquire technical and human skills and a model that focuses hope.

Of the concept of harmony of wine, which some way reflects recreating a balance also the men who work there.

Of the wine it brings within itself those people, the stories, the joys, the suffering, the redemption. That breaks every border and unites. Of the dedication of the prisoners to make it and a territory expressed through simple and respectful vinifications. Of a way to go to to the future. With hope fact.

How is the White Gorgona 2024?

White from Vermentino and Ansonica really interesting. Flowers, yellow -pulp fruit and citrus fruits and a nice aromatic kit of Mediterranean herbs and iodine agenda the nose. Per the mouth there is substance, pulp, a great marine freshness combined with a beautiful flavor. A gastronomic white that suggests a nice evolutionary potential. Who looks to the future, even the glass.

Raffaele Cumani