On a beautiful penitentiary island in the Tuscan Archipelago, the Frescobaldi family has been working with inmates since 2012 to produce fine bottles in what is considered a virtuous model of rehabilitation.
Photo from Frescobaldi's official website
The news
The Frescobaldi family, on the breach since the 13th century, certainly does not lack history. However, contemporaneity presses on, and the winery has not lagged behind, even in conceptual terms. In an age when good seeks coincidence with right, a project such as the one carried out at Gorgona seems decidedly centered.
This is reported in The Buyer by journalist Mike Turner, who was asked to learn about the project live. Reaching the island, among the last in the country to house a prison, required an hour-and-a-half ferry crossing from the port of Livorno. Where an old monastery was located before the reconversion in 1869, it now houses facilities aimed at rehabilitating prisoners, engaged in agricultural work and outdoor farming. Those who choose to reside there thus access valuable educational opportunities, exercised in a biodiversity paradise within the Tuscan Archipelago National Park. Access is therefore highly controlled, and the family itself can invite visitors only once a year.
The vineyard actually existed since 1999, but the results were unsatisfactory, so that the management in 2012 asked the Tuscan wine elite for help. Getting only one response, that of the Frescobaldi family, as Marquis Lamberto, the winery's president, amusedly recounts. In the same year, the project Frescobaldi for Social Responsibility was launched in partnership with the penitentiary management. Inmates were provided with essential training in vine cultivation and winemaking, under the supervision of the home's agronomists and oenologists, not without some logistical difficulties in the event of stormy weather. The first vintage dated 2013 was signed by Andrea Bocelli, while the magnum was even presented by President Napolitano; as label designer the graphic artist Simonetta Doni, as promoter Giorgio Pinchiorri.
Small plots were added to the original vineyard in 2015 and 2017, so as to involve more inmates. Very vocated territories, located less than a kilometer from the sea and at the altitude of 50-100 meters, composing a kind of natural amphitheater facing east, well protected from the winds coming from the sea. The soils are stony and volcanic, the cultivation methods organic, according to the project's principle of bringing people and nature closer together. Winemaker Nicolò D'Afflitto is an early enthusiast: “The vineyard was so beautiful, I was immediately sure that we would get something wonderful out of it.”
To work on the island, inmates who apply must serve a minimum sentence of 25 years and have distinguished themselves by good behavior. Only then can they apply, receiving a salary for their services. There are currently a total of 65 of them, five of whom work only in wine making, including dry stone wall maintenance. However, they cannot taste the fruit of their labor or even see it, as the barrels are sent to the mainland for aging and bottling. And it's a model that works: the recidivism rate is less than 1 percent, with a good chance of inclusion in the Frescobaldi workforce or in the industry at the end of their sentences.
