October 14, 2025 - 3 comments
At 23, she was certain she’d never work with her parents. Twenty-five years later, Nadia Verrua has transformed the image of Cascina Tavijn, without losing what matters most: the soul of her father’s wine.
“My parents weren’t exactly thrilled.”
Nadia Verrua smiles as she recalls her early days at Cascina Tavijn, a quarter of a century ago. The fourth generation of a family that had never bottled its own wine, she arrived with a single, stubborn idea: to bottle it. Her experience? Just a few harvests. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The plan seemed simple enough, keep making wine the way her father did, in damigiana, those large glass demijohns so typical of old Italian traditions. But the appellation rules changed, the system tightened. So Nadia adapted. She launched La Bandita in standard 75cl bottles and completely reinvented Cascina Tavijn’s labels. A new beginning, in a way.
Faces on the Bottles
The new labels bear the signature of designer Gianluca Cannizzo, and faces. The face of her mother, Teresa. Her father, Ottavio. Her daughter, Bianca.
“We could never change a label that has my mother’s, my father’s, or Bianca’s face on it,” Nadia admits. Her younger daughter, Caterina, isn’t there yet. “But soon, we’ll get to that.”
For Ottavio’s generation, these labels were a shock, too modern, too far removed from the wine world he knew. Yet when someone comes into the courtyard and asks for “one Ottavio and two Teresas,” the father smiles. Even the funky Ottavio label, with its big wig, makes him laugh. “In the end,” says Nadia, “this little game makes him smile.”
Passing It On, Without Forcing It
Bianca and Caterina grew up at the estate. As kids, they helped with all sorts of tasks. Now, at 14 and 16, “it’s not an easy age,” Nadia says with a knowing smile. Will they take over one day? “Right now, I really don’t think so.”
And that’s perfectly fine. Nadia herself is living proof, until she was 23, the idea of working with her parents couldn’t have appealed less. Then she chose to do it. Twenty-five years later, she reflects: “So who knows? Maybe someday... It’s not something I’d reject. What matters is that they’re happy.”
In the end, what’s most important?
“That they have a place to come back to.”
At Cascina Tavijn, revolutions happen gently. Funky labels share space with damigianas; four generations cross paths without stepping on each other’s toes. Nadia Verrua has found her balance: to innovate without denying the past, to pass things on without pressure, and to make her father laugh, with a wig drawn on a bottle.
