About Dante Minutello

I am Dante Minutello, a sommelier and wine-tour guide based in Brno, in South Moravia, Czechia. I have spent over a decade in wine and, before that, years in restaurant kitchens. Today I take small groups to cellars in Armenia, Georgia, Italy, France, Austria and my own Moravia, and I am the person pouring at every stop.

From the kitchen to the cellar#

I did not come to wine through a tasting room. I came to it through service: the noise of a working kitchen, the pass, the plates that had to leave on time. In that world wine is not a subject, it is an ingredient: the thing that has to work with tonight’s dish.

At some point the bottles began to interest me more than the plates. I started asking a cook’s questions: where does this come from, who made it, why does it taste like this and not like that. The kitchen left me two habits: taste before you talk, and respect the person who did the work.

Why I pour both natural and classic#

Wine has sorted itself into camps, and I am often asked which one I belong to. Neither. I pour natural wines with no added sulfur, and I pour classic wines from estates that filter, fine and add sulfur to a recipe they trust. Both belong on my tables, often side by side.

What interests me is the decision behind the wine. Why this grower left the skins in for six months and that one pressed them off in six hours. Why steel here, clay there, old oak in the next village. Once you understand the choice, you can taste the wine on its own terms. I have written more in what I pour and why; on tour I let the two styles argue on the table.

How I build a tour#

I start with the table, not the map: where we will eat well, with which cook, and which wines belong to that food. Then I find the cellars within reach and put them in an order that makes sense in the glass: whites before reds, high altitude before low, the quiet estate before the loud one.

A day has two cellar visits, three at most, and about two hours of driving. I have been to every estate before, and every winemaker knows what I will ask them to open. A driver takes the minibus so I can sit with you and talk.

I never run the same route twice unchanged, because the cellars change. A new karas goes into the ground in Vayots Dzor, a grower in Kakheti tries Rkatsiteli without skins, someone in the Langhe hands the cellar to a daughter. Those are the things worth driving for.

What a guest can expect#

Groups are six to ten people on a scheduled departure: the size that fits round one table and into one cellar without anyone standing at the back. You will taste from tank and barrel, not only from the bottle. You will eat what the region eats, cooked by people who cook it every week, with the wines that belong to it.

You do not need to know anything about wine to come. You need to be curious, reasonably punctual, and happy with a day that runs from a 9:00 departure to a long dinner. I explain everything once, clearly, and then get out of the way. Nobody is quizzed. The FAQ covers the practicalities.

Five languages, one cellar#

I speak Czech, Russian, English, Armenian and Italian. That is not a party trick; it is why these tours work. A winemaker explaining his sulfur decisions in his own language says more than the same winemaker being polite in English. In Armenia the conversation about the karas happens in Armenian. In Georgia the older generation reaches for Russian. In Piedmont and Friuli we talk in Italian, and at home in Moravia the cellar speaks Czech.

My job is to be the bridge: to hear what was actually said, including the joke and the hesitation, and hand it to you intact. Trust in a cellar is built in the winemaker’s language, over time, and it cannot be delegated.

Where to start#

Brno is a good base. The cellars of South Moravia are 30 to 60 minutes from my door, Vienna an hour and a half, the Wachau two and a half, and Prague the same in the other direction. For Armenia, Georgia, Italy and France I fly out with the group.

Scheduled departures are listed under tours. For your own group and dates, read about private tours or write to me. I answer in whichever of the five languages you prefer.