Access to the island of Gorgona is only possible with a regular permit. Here the inmates of the penitentiary are free to move wherever they want, and we went to discover Frescobaldi Vini and to taste them.
There are occasions that happen once in a lifetime and one of them happened last week: a press trip to the penitentiary island of la Gorgona in Tuscany.. At 8 in the morning I was ready in the lobby of the Hotel Touring in Livorno and with me many journalists from the printed media. The emotion was palpable in the air even among those who organized the trip. Almost fifty people to be embarked on a private motorboat, leaving at 8.30 and with a weather not exactly the best.
The reason for the press trip was the presentation of Gorgona 2013, a white wine produced on the island with Vermentino and Ansonica grapes. Marquesses de 'Frescobaldi, noble winery with over 700 years of history in the Italian and world wine scene.
THEisland of la Gorgona, the smallest of the Tuscan archipelago, is 18 nautical miles from the Livorno coast and during the crossing there was no shortage of sightings of dolphins that seemed to accompany our journey. Waiting for us at the quay of the penitentiary island a crowd of blue berets, the guards, many of whom we later discovered were Sardinians. On this island prisoners are free to move wherever they want and it is some of the inmates who take care of the cellar, the vineyard and the various agricultural activities on the island.
Even before participating in this trip I knew that Frescobaldi in 2012 was taking care of an oenological project on the island, but after having talked with various journalists, prisoners and Frescobaldi themselves, I understood its real importance and importance, like the many illustrious actors involved: first of all Lamberto Frescobaldi, then Carlo Mazzerbo director of the penitentiary that involved the wine house, then the supporters of the project such as the master Andrea Bocelli who signed the 2013 label also dedicating a text, then Giorgio Pinchiorri patron of the Pinchiorri wine shop in Florence. The wine, Frescobaldi's Gorgona, is only the final result of a multi-year project that has a great social value. To date, there is only one hectare of vineyard placed on a sandy ground at 60 meters above sea level, in a sort of natural amphitheater that also shelters it from the winds.
The project now provides for the expansion of the vineyard with another hectare. As soon as 2500 bottles produced and 200 magnums, all numbered. I was lucky enough to taste a few glasses and I admit that it is a wine of this type, served chilled on a sunny Tuscan island full of meanings like Gorgona, it really has its own reason.
