Vietti
Appellations
History
Vietti traces its roots to a family farm in Castiglione Falletto, at the top of the medieval village in the heart of the Langhe, founded in the late 1800s by Carlo Vietti; a 2016 Decanter report describing the estate as '143-year-old' at the time of its sale places the founding at 1873. Carlo's son Mario Vietti returned to Piedmont from the United States in 1917 and set about turning the diversified family farm into a dedicated wine business; according to the wine-reference site Tastingbook, the first wines bottled under the Vietti name date from 1919.
The estate's modern reputation was built by Alfredo Currado, who joined the family business around 1960 after marrying Luciana Vietti. In 1961 Currado released one of the first modern single-vineyard Barolos, from the Rocche di Castiglione cru in the family's home commune, at a time when almost all Barolo was blended from grapes grown in several villages. In 1967 he produced one of the first single-varietal bottlings of Arneis, then a nearly extinct local white grape grown mainly as a buffer to protect Nebbiolo from birds; the wine helped revive Arneis, alongside similar efforts by fellow Piedmont producer Bruno Giacosa. From 1974, Vietti began commissioning a different artist each vintage to design the label of its top wines, a practice that continues today and has made the labels themselves collectible.
Leadership passed in the 1980s to Alfredo and Luciana's son-in-law Mario Cordero, and from the 1990s to their son Luca Currado Vietti, who ran winemaking alongside his wife Elena Penna; multiple sources, including Decanter, describe Luca as the fifth generation of the family to lead the estate. The couple bought the estate's first plot in the Ravera cru of Novello in 1996, fruit that today forms the backbone of the blended Barolo Castiglione bottling. In July 2016 the Currado family sold Vietti to American businessman Kyle Krause and his wife Sharon, owners of the Kum & Go convenience-store chain and, since 2015, of the nearby Enrico Serafino winery in Canale d'Alba; Luca Currado stayed on as chief executive and winemaker and Mario Cordero as marketing director, and the Krause family subsequently added further Barolo and Barbaresco crus and Timorasso vineyards in the Tortona hills to the estate. In January 2023, Luca and Elena Currado left Vietti entirely to found their own small winery, Cascina Penna-Currado, in Monforte d'Alba, ending direct family involvement in day-to-day winemaking; Vietti has since operated under full Krause family ownership and management.