FRESCOBALDI PER GORGONA: the special wine at Quirinale

The President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, received this morning the Head of the Department of Penitentiary Administration, Giovanni Tamburino, with the President of Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi, Lamberto Frescobaldi, to illustrate the social and of wine results of the “Frescobaldi per Gorgona” project.

What is “Frescobaldi per Gorgona”?

“Frescobaldi per Gorgona” is a multi–year project with social value realised thanks to the collaboration between the Tuscan winery and the Gorgona island, seat of a penal colony. Inmates spend the last part of their detention period working and living in contact with nature, looking for an opportunity to reintegrate themselves into the world of work and in the society. Frescobaldi has devised a plan that allows prisoners, with the assistance and supervision of agronomists and oenologists of Frescobaldi, to cultivate a hectare of vineyard on the island, and then to work in the wine cellar, where wine is produced in a limited edition: “Frescobaldi per Gorgona”.

Finally, inmates who want it, once ended the period of detention, can be hired as farm workers at one of the estates of the Group.

The first results of “Frescobaldi per Gorgona”?

«In the first year – Lamberto Frescobaldi says – 2,700 bottles have been produced, sold in a few months in the best restaurants and wine bars in Italy, in the U.S. and in Germany. Next spring another hectare of vineyard will be planted on the island and in May we will present the new vintage of Gorgona». «For all these results, for this social project and for the wine that is particularly close to the heart – Frescobaldi underscores – I thank President Napolitano, who wanted to meet me today, the Head of the DAP, the Penitentiary Administration of Gorgona, the Director Giampiccolo before and Director Mazerbo today, the partners who have embraced the project and most of all the inmates who have worked with our agronomists in the vineyard and in the cellar. It is a project that shows how even in Italy there are examples of good prison administration.

Other contributions to the “Frescobaldi per Gorgona” project

Giorgio Pinchiorri, leader of Enoteca Pinchiorri, who has chosen to help to promote the gastronomic capital of the island of Gorgona. In the Enoteca’s menus a dish dedicated to the colors and flavors of the island of Gorgona will be included.

Argotractors, who has given on an extended loan a tractor for orchard to carry out activities in the vineyard.

Simonetta Doni, of the Doni & Associati Studio, who has created the design of the wine bottles free of charge.