The private villa has quietly displaced the grand hotel as luxury travel's defining proposition. The market for high-end villa rentals is forecast to roughly double this decade, to around USD 37 billion by 2034, a figure that reflects a settled preference among affluent travellers for space, privacy, and the satisfaction of a place that feels like one’s own. The 2026 Virtuoso Luxe Report confirms the direction, recording rising demand for what it terms ‘ultraluxe’ travel: private, exclusive, and attended to without interruption.
For Evgeny Strzhalkovskiy, owner of Scarpa Villas and the historic Scarpa winery in Piedmont, the trend is less discovery than vindication. Above the village of Verduno, in the celebrated Monvigliero cru of Barolo, he has restored four historic residences into villas of genuine provenance, set within one of Italy's most storied wine landscapes.
Scarpa Villas occupies a four-residence private estate within the Monvigliero vineyards of the Langhe UNESCO World Heritage Site, set above the village of Verduno and owned by Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa. The estate bills itself as a Barolo Luxury Escape, and the description is earned. The four houses, Tettineive, La Bogliona, I Bricchi and Tettimorra, stand together as a single borgo set within the working vines of Cascina Monvigliero, a short drive from Alba, , each within the same landscape that produces one of Barolo’s most prized single-vineyard wines. Their views run through the villas' own Instagram.
"We opened the estate, one group at a time," says Strzhalkovskiy. "That kind of privacy cannot be manufactured."
Monvigliero is one of Verduno's most coveted Barolo crus, and Scarpa farms two hectares within it, meaning guests sleep inside the vineyard that produces the estate's own Monvigliero Barolo. The wine at dinner comes from the vines beyond the terrace. The village is a twenty-minute walk through the rows.
"Anyone can sell a view of vineyards. We put people inside the one that makes the wine in the glass," says Strzhalkovskiy. "That is the whole proposition."
For those who want the estate to themselves, Scarpa offers The Borgo: all four houses held exclusively as one property, with a private chef on hand and no other guests. The villas make a single setting for one group to share - a family gathering, a company retreat, a party of friends - with the whole of Monvigliero to themselves. The logical conclusion of the proposition Strzhalkovskiy describes.
A stay at Scarpa Villas opens the broader estate. Guests have access to Scarpa Experiences at the original cellars in Nizza Monferrato, in operation since 1900, where guided cellar tours move through working barrel rooms to the Wine Lounge and Scarpa Gallery, and into the Caveau, the estate’s library of historical vintages. The two addresses are forty minutes apart and function as a single offer. Recognition has followed, as Scarpa Villas appears on Winedering, the region’s specialist wine-tourism guide, and among the curated properties recommended to members of Vivanova, the Monaco-based luxury travel club.
"The villas and the cellar are one offer, not two. You sleep in the cru and taste in the house that has made these wines since 1900," says Strzhalkovskiy. "It is the same discipline - in the vineyard, the cellar, and how we look after a guest."
Scarpa Villas is owned by Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa, the Piedmont house Strzhalkovskiy acquired in 2017. Monaco-based, he spent two decades in venture capital before turning to wine, a transition that now spans Scarpa, Monte Carlo Vermouth, Trinity Monaco, Fincher & Co. and two recent foundations: Maison Eugène René, established in 2021, and ERA Winegrape Tradition, a winegrowers' charity launched in 2025. The villas are the first of the estate's hospitality projects, but unlikely to be the last.
"Wine will always be the centre. But a great estate should be somewhere you can arrive, stay, and begin to understand," he says. "We are at the beginning."
Scarpa Villas at a glance
