You Have to Be a Little Crazy
Elena Currado had wanted to go to agricultural school. Her mother said no — it was too hard for women. She studied languages instead, learned wine by standing beside her husband Luca, and spent thirty-seven years helping build Vietti into one of the most celebrated estates in Barolo.
In 2016, they sold it. Not by choice — not entirely. They owned half. Luca's sister's family owned the other half, and when the sister's family decided to sell, there was no way to buy them out. A German family, the Krauses, purchased the estate. Luca and Elena stayed on to manage the transition for three years, running it as if it were still theirs, until the demands changed and the vision diverged, and they walked away from everything they had spent a working life building.
Elena described it as a tragedy. She struggled for a couple of years. Luca held steady.
Then in 2018 they made a decision. They had known a family in Serralunga for thirty years — since the early 1990s — and had waited, quietly, for the right moment. When the elderly siblings who owned a farmhouse there decided to sell, Luca and Elena bought it. The building had been abandoned. They renovated half of it. Their son Michele and their daughter Giulia, who had both refused to work at Vietti after the sale, heard about the new project and changed their minds. They are both here now.
The first official vintage was 2023. The wine hasn't been released yet.
Elena told me, without any performance of hardship: "You have to be a little crazy in life. Starting over at fifty-five and fifty-seven."
Not crazy. Patient. There is a difference, but it requires time to see it.
Cascina Penna Currado was founded by Luca and Elena Currado in Serralunga d'Alba. First vintage: 2023.
Cascina Penna-Currado
di Luca Currado Vietti s.a.s. Agricola
Via Alba 7 - 12050 - Serralunga d’Alba (Cn)
Italia
info@cascinapennacurrado.com
