On this Tuscan prison island, inmates are taught to make world-class wine

The scene before us is more colorful than a Wes Anderson movie. Vibrant pinks and oranges, murals of rainbows, peace doves and mythical creatures bursting from chrysalises. It could be a kindergarten—or a hippie utopia.

In many Italian communes, house colors are strictly controlled by the government, often in shades of orange to blend in with the land; think terracotta, ochre, or marigold at the more daring end.

But those rules don’t apply at this Skittles pack island in the Tuscan Archipelago. Rather curiously, as it’s a place built on rules. This is Gorgona island, it’s also a prison, and the prisoners make wine.

Gorgona lies in the Tuscan Archipelago, a popular holiday destination, made up of seven islands of which, Elba, the largest by more than 200 square kilometers, sees the most footfall. The marine park around the archipelago is home to sea turtles, dolphins and sperm whales, the latter two regularly sighted on the crossing to Gorgona. On land, the craggy isles tell the story of more than 2,000 years of history.

They’ve been inhabited by the Etruscans, the Romans, and medieval monks. Elba even appears in Greek mythology, on Jason’s quest for the golden fleece, and the vestiges of Roman villas still stand on several of the islands, including the smallest: The prison island of Gorgona.

When Gorgona was threatened with closure, prison governor Maria Grazia Giampiccolo wrote to over a hundred of Italy’s largest winemakers to ask for their help. She received just one reply.

Prison to holiday destination or sight of interest is not as unusual a trajectory as it might seem. Many island holiday hotspots were once penal colonies, where their remoteness served as a natural fence—the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, St Helena, Alcatraz. Prison islands are now much rarer, largely due to the logistics and cost involved in shipping food over to remote locations, but rarer still are islands where a penal institution and tourism industry exist side-by-side.

As we leave the boat, the island is quiet. Vineyards spill down the hill, music drifts through one of the open windows, a palm tree sways languidly in what little breeze there is. There are only around 100 people on Gorgona.

It’s a short walk from the port to the beach at the foot of the village, where a kayak and several rowing boats, paint peeling from their hulls, are beached. I’m surprised to see oars and paddles propped up next to them. The Shawshank Redemption would have been a much shorter film had it featured a breakout from this prison.

Nonetheless, access to Gorgona is heavily controlled. Parco Arcipelago Toscano, which runs visits to the island, recommends that tourists book at least two weeks in advance so that necessary background checks can be undertaken. There’s a cap at 100 tourists a day, and trips, heavily weather-dependent, run between once and twice a week during the summer season. There are mandatory forms, supplied in advance to the prison and the police, and if you have any any kind of criminal record, you can be turned away at boarding. Mobile phones and cameras have to be left at home.

Gorgona has been a penal colony since 1869, and is now reserved exclusively for men serving the final years of a long sentence. What makes it more unusual is many of these prisoners are employed by a local winemaker. While the first vines were planted the century before the prison opened, until the early ‘00s, viticulture and prison life didn’t mix. Then, in 2008, one of the inmates decided to revive the vines, and so, Gorgona’s winemaking industry was born.

As reported by former prison governor Carlo Mazzerbo in his book, Ne vale la pena: Gorgona, una storia di detenzione, lavoro e riscatto [It’s worth it: Gorgona, a story of detention, work and redemption], inmates already ran an island farm. Originally a kind of slaughterhouse, it was transformed when the prisoners protested against killing animals that they’d helped to raise from birth.

Initially, there was little viticultural knowledge and next-to-no equipment, so the first wines produced were poor quality. But the resurrection of the vines was to become Gorgona’s salvation. Soon after, when Gorgona was threatened with closure, prison governor Maria Grazia Giampiccolo wrote to over a hundred of Italy’s largest winemakers to ask for their help. She received just one reply.

Lamberto Frescobaldi, marquis and 30th generation winemaker whose Tuscan family wine history dates back over 700 years, was instantly curious. He replied straight away and arranged to visit the island. No sooner than he’d been to Gorgona, he dropped a bombshell on his wife and two children: He planned to take over the running of the prison vineyards, and pay the inmates that worked there the same hourly wage as at Frescobaldi’s mainland vineyards.

“We believe that everyone deserves a second chance, and that everyone needs hope, and that’s what Gorgona does, it gives people hope again.”

- Carlo Frescobaldi

The seven-kilometer hiking route organized by Parco Arcipelago Toscano starts from Gorgona’s port, and climbs from the beach at the foot of the village (there’s time for swimming at the end). After passing the penitentiary buildings, including Villa Margherita, built on Roman ruins, visitors arrive at the vineyards. Staggered like rice terraces, most of them grow Vermentino and Ansonica grapes for Gorgona Bianco, although there are some grapes for red wine too.

Visits to Gorgona are very grassroots, and you can’t buy wine on-site, although it’s stocked by several online retailers at over EUR€80 a bottle. You can buy other products made by the prisoners, largely olive oil and homegrown vegetables, in the small island shop. Take a packed lunch and plenty of water (water is scarce on Gorgona). The only refreshment included is coffee in the prison bar before beginning the hike.

The dirt road loops around to the prison farm, home to pigs, cows, goats and plenty of bees, before arriving at Torre Vecchia (Old Tower), a 13th-century Pisan watchtower. At the northernmost point is the 19th-century complex that housed the island’s former lighthouse. The entire trail is on dirt roads, and the guides are exceptionally knowledgeable about the history of the prison, both pre and post viticulture.

My own visit is organized by the Frescobaldi family, and I walk with Carlo Frescobaldi, the Marquis’s son, as we climb to the farm. “We believe that everyone deserves a second chance, and that everyone needs hope,” he says, “and that’s what Gorgona does, it gives people hope again.”

Sadly, most European prisons aren’t a place of hope. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that over 32 percent of prisoners in Europe suffered from mental health disorders, and stated themselves that this figure was likely significantly under the reality. The principle cause of death in prison is suicide. In most Italian prisons, inmates only spend one or two hours a day outside their cells, and the reoffending rate is almost 70 percent.

At Gorgona, virtually all daylight hours are spent outside, and just seven percent of former inmates go on to re-offend. “One girl said proudly to my father, ‘my dad works for you in your vineyards’,” Carlo Frescobaldi tells me.

It’s likely that the freedom of family visits also has an impact on Gorgona’s low reoffending rate. Family members can visit once a week, and here there’s no clear plastic screen or austere visitation room. Gorgona’s low reoffending rate, and several UK-based studies have found links between maintaining family ties and lower reoffending rates. Rebecca James, Senior Project Manager in Criminal Justice at the National Literacy Trust, has seen this link first-hand.

“At the National Literacy Trust, we run Readconnect, a storytelling project which works with authors and facilitators to help men and women in prison use literacy as a way to engage with their children,” James tells me. “It means that they have support when writing, reading over the phone or during visits. It’s a great way of strengthening family ties when they can’t be present in the home environment, and research shows that having good family ties has an impact on reoffending rates too.”

Our tour of Gorgona finished, the inmates serve us lunch and their latest Gorgona Bianco vintage on the sunny terrace outside the penitentiary. They bring us plates of cacciucco (a Tuscan fish stew containing octopus, mussels and shrimp), pistachio cannoli, and vol-au-vents delicately topped with redcurrants. Between courses, they smoke cigarettes and chat to the guards, who seem to be thoroughly enjoying the wine. When we board the boat again, my heart, and belly, are a whole lot fuller.

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Anna was a guest of the Frescobaldi family; interaction with the prisoners is not generally permitted. Trips with Parco Arcipelago Toscano are typically in Italian. You can request an English-speaking guide at the time of reservation, but as not all the guides are bilingual, it’s not guaranteed.

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