The Enduring Collaboration between Marchesi Frescobaldi and the Gorgona Penal Institute Continues to Rework Lives By Winemaking on Italy’s Island of Salvation
June 13, 2025 (Gorgona, Italy) — As custom holds, at the moment Lamberto Frescobaldi, President of Marchesi Frescobaldi, uncorked the primary bottle of Gorgona 2024 on the island itself – the most recent classic of a wine born in a really extraordinary place: Gorgona, the final remaining correctional facility in Europe.
“A bottle travels the world and carries the story of everybody who labored to create it,” says Lamberto Frescobaldi. “It’s straightforward to fall in love with working in wine and within the winery – maybe extra so than in lots of different fields. And when wine is the product of a challenge like this one, born 13 years in the past, there may be each cause to be proud. The energy of Gorgona lies in its inmates, who develop actual winemaking expertise on the island.” Frescobaldi continues “A challenge like this has an immense affect – as a result of when sentences are served and other people return to society, they achieve this with instruments that assist them rebuild their lives.”
Launched in 2012 by a partnership between Marchesi Frescobaldi and the Gorgona Penal Institute, the challenge affords inmates a possibility for social redemption. On the island, they serve the ultimate a part of their sentence in shut contact with nature, whereas buying skilled expertise in viticulture. Throughout this era, they obtain a daily wage, making certain they’ve a monetary basis upon returning to life outdoors jail.
In a setting the place time flows with the seasons and the fingers that form the land, inmates actively participate in wine manufacturing, working alongside Marchesi Frescobaldi’s agronomists and oenologists. This expertise affords not solely tactical coaching, however prepares them emotionally as properly – a path to social reintegration guides the dignity of labor and the therapeutic grace of magnificence.
Gorgona—described by Andrea Bocelli in 2014 as “Aphrodite’s wildest and most radiant pearl”—is a pure amphitheater overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. The vineyards, now stretched over two hectares, flourish in iron-rich soils caressed by the light sea breeze. Right here Vermentino and Ansonica specific all their magnificence and complexity, giving life to a wine that captures the island’s energy and poetry.
As is custom, every classic of Gorgona encompasses a distinctive label; the 2024 version showcases butterflies—symbols of stability and transformation—native to the Tuscan Archipelago. Designed in collaboration with Simonetta Doni of Studio Doni & Affiliation – one of many class’s main design studios on the earth – the label celebrates the island’s biodiversity and the inexperienced manuring observe that nurtures its fertile soil.
Within the glass, Gorgona 2024 reveals a shiny straw yellow hue. The bouquet is elegant and expressive, that includes Mediterranean blossoms, fruity notes of bergamot and tropical fruits, with natural hints and a saline, iodine end that captures the island’s essence. On the palate, Gorgona 2024 is contemporary, savory, persistent, and remarkably balanced, with an extended end. The 2024 rising season noticed a light winter with frequent autumn-to-spring rainfall. A big temperature drops in September delayed the harvest, with Vermentino picked in mid-September and Ansonica in mid-October.
GORGONA – COSTA TOSCANA IGT
A one-of-a-kind wine. Simply 9,000 bottles are produced every classic – an emblem of winemaking excellence, environmental respect, and social duty. Gorgona is the story of an island, the individuals who work there, and the enduring perception that magnificence and goal can remodel lives.
THE VISION
Frescobaldi per il sociale started in August 2012. Earlier than being a wine, it was a long-term challenge launched with the help of the Gorgona jail administration. Its objective: to supply inmates a hands-on, skilled expertise in viticulture.
THE PROJECT
The Gorgona challenge started in August 2012 as a partnership between Marchesi Frescobaldi and the Gorgona Penal Institute—the one prison-island in Europe. Right here, inmates spend the ultimate stretch of their sentences working involved with nature, creating expertise that help their return to the workforce and society.
Centered round a small winery nestled in a sea-facing amphitheater, the initiative helps inmates achieve hands-on expertise in viticulture below the supervision of Marchesi Frescobaldi’s agronomists and oenologists. The unique one-hectare winery has been restored by the inmates themselves, and one other 1.3 hectares have since been planted by Marchesi Frescobaldi.
Gorgona Rosso was launched with the 2015 classic. It’s constructed from Sangiovese and Vermentino Nero grown organically and aged in terracotta amphorae.
THE TIMELINE OF THE PROJECT
In Might 2013, the primary classic of Gorgona (2012) was introduced on the DAP headquarters in Rome, and in September of the identical yr, the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, additionally acquired magnum quantity “0” as a present from Lamberto Frescobaldi himself. In June 2014, Marchesi Frescobaldi signed a 15-year collaboration settlement with the jail administration and employed two inmates working within the Gorgona winery, who’re instantly employed and salaried by the corporate.
In February 2015, the inmates, below the coordination of Marchesi Frescobaldi’s winemakers, planted one other hectare of Vermentino on the island, with the objective of involving extra individuals within the winery work and producing an excellent higher-quality wine.
THE PARTNERS
Andrea Bocelli wrote and signed the label for the 2013 classic.
“The Tuscan Archipelago is an earthly paradise, of which Gorgona is Aphrodite’s wildest and most radiant pearl. Behind its obvious ruggedness lies the unspeakable seduction of scents and silences, and a nature that strikes you with its energy, with its everlasting youth… And throughout, water and salt, reflecting the messages of the sky, tightening the ropes on the sails.” (A. Bocelli – 2014)
Simonetta Doni of Studio Doni & Associati, one of many only a few worldwide design studios specialised in wine label design, contributes every year by donating the graphic design for Gorgona’s label. Along with a extremely specialised workforce with a definite cultural and creative sensibility, she interprets the distinctive qualities of the challenge and the island that brings it to life.
Giorgio Pinchiorri, patron of Enoteca Pinchiorri, some of the famend Italian eating places on the earth, participates within the challenge by selecting to contribute along with his unique delicacies to the promotion of the meals and wine heritage of the island of Gorgona.
Argotractors, an organization of the Argo Group based in 2007 with the objective of making a world tractor manufacturing hub, donated a winery tractor for agricultural actions on the island.
MARCHESI FRESCOBALDI
The Frescobaldi household has been producing wine in Tuscany for over 700 years. Marchesi Frescobaldi is without doubt one of the main wine producers in Italy, with merchandise positioned within the high-end high-quality wine section. The corporate, which mixes custom and innovation, believes in respecting the land and enhancing the worth of the grapes from its personal vineyards, and is understood worldwide for its wines from its 9 estates: Tenuta Castiglioni, Tenuta CastelGiocondo, Tenuta Perano, Castello Nipozzano, Castello Pomino, Tenuta Calimaia, Tenuta Ammiraglia, Rémole, and Gorgona.
