Cascina Penna-Currado

Cascina Penna-Currado: the essence

Serralunga d'Alba is an impressive landscape where every hill tells a story and every soil speaks of viticulture. The Cascina Penna-Currado, a historic farmhouse that looks out over the vines like a silent sentinel, stands on a ridge, the "Crinale". The vines take deep root in the barren, calcareous marl soils and create the minerality that gives the wines tension, structure and remarkable development potential. Steep slopes, open skies and a constant breeze create the basic conditions for growths that unmistakably reflect the character of this diverse region.

A master begins anew

In 2023, winemaking legend Luca Currado Vietti and his wife Elena Penna founded this winery – a new beginning that was more than just a change of chapter. After more than two decades as an Oenologist and managing director at Vietti, where he had played a decisive role in shaping the international perception of the Langhe, Currado chose the path of reduction. Instead of size, he opted for closeness, instead of volume for dedicated precision.

One episode aptly describes this: After his departure, numerous doors were open to him, but he deliberately chose a small project with a family heartbeat, in which his children Giulia and Michele also actively support him. Today, the Currados cultivate around eight hectares of vineyards, which only produce around 40,000 bottles a year. Every single bottle is a concentrated statement – small in quantity, big in ambition.

The foundation of elegance

The plots are located at medium altitudes around Serralunga, where hot days and cool nights create a natural rhythm of ripeness and balance. The limestone and clay soils are poor but rich in history: they force the vines deep into the subsoil and give the grapes the minerality that gives the wines their backbone and complexity. The vines are cultivated according to organic principles, without chemical intervention and with a clear focus on sustainability. Even without official certification, the philosophy corresponds to the self-image of farming in harmony with nature and origin.

The art of quiet vinification

Currado's mastery is revealed in its most subtle form in the cellar. Dolcetto d'Alba "Bricco Lago" is fermented cool and matured in stainless steel to preserve its fruit and juiciness unadulterated. Barbera d'Alba Superiore "Carrà" is carefully matured to emphasise its spiciness and density. Nebbiolo d'Alba Superiore "San Sebastiano" and Langhe Nebbiolo from the same vineyard benefit from longer macerations and ageing in large barrels or selected tonneaux – they combine finesse with structure and emphasise the noble potential of the grape variety.

A white voice completes the ensemble: Timorasso Derthona, taut, mineral and endowed with the longevity that makes this old grape variety so fascinating.

Currado's approach is always the same: minimal intervention, maximum authenticity, a vinification that does not mould the wine but lets it tell its origin.

Focussed, rare, unmistakable

The portfolio remains deliberately small, yet rich in style and diversity. Barbera presents itself with juicy freshness and dark spice, Dolcetto as a fruit-accentuated wine of astonishing depth. Nebbiolo reveals elegance and longevity, while Timorasso brings an unexpected facet of cool precision to the collection. These wines are not mass products, but fine rarities that appeal to the connoisseur: authentic voices of a landscape, condensed into a small, focussed and desirable collection.

Looking ahead

"We didn't want to create a second Vietti, but something of our own: small, focussed and honest," says Luca Currado. This sentence summarises the philosophy of the winery. Penna-Currado is more than just a project: it is the essence of a Barolo legend that has reinvented itself once again and now tells of its origins, experience and future in its usual well-founded voice. SUPERIORE.DE