Winemaker stories on Dante Minutello · Wine Tours with a Sommelier

Sepp and Maria Muster and the Opok above Leutschach

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Leutschach is the last village before Slovenia, and the road up to the Schlossberg above it is the kind that makes the driver stop talking. It leaves the Südsteirische Weinstraße, the wine road that has followed these ridges since 1956, and climbs between vines planted so steeply that the rows seem to lean on one another. This is Styria, the humid green south-east of Austria, four hours and a quarter from my door in Brno and forty-five minutes from Graz airport, and it is where Sepp and Maria Muster farm ten hectares of Opok.

Claus Preisinger and the green roof above Gols

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Gols is where the flat begins. Coming from Vienna the land is done with hills by the time you pass Parndorf, and at Gols, on the north-east shore of the Neusiedlersee, the horizon is a line of reeds and sky. This is Burgenland, the warm, dry, Pannonian corner of Austria: about 2,000 hours of sun a year and a steppe lake 36 km long that averages a metre deep. I had spent the two days before at Karakterre in Eisenstadt, the fair of organic, biodynamic and natural growers, and Gols is about forty minutes around the top of the lake. On 15 May 2026 the car thermometer read 21 °C at 10:00 and the wind was already up, the way it usually is here.

Gut Oggau and the family with faces on the label

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Oggau am Neusiedler See is two and a half hours from Brno if the ring road around Vienna behaves, and the last twenty minutes are the ones I look forward to. The road comes down off the Leitha hills, the reeds of the Neusiedlersee rise on the left like a green wall, and the villages of the west shore of Burgenland line up with their long yards turned away from the street. This is the warm, flat, sun-heavy corner of Austria, and it is where Eduard Tscheppe and Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck have run Gut Oggau since 2007.

Willi Bründlmayer and the Lyra vines of the Heiligenstein

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Langenlois announces itself with vines rather than a sign. The road from Brno crosses the flat Weinviertel for two hours, drops into the Kamp valley north of the Danube, and the hills on both sides are suddenly striped to the top. This is the Kamptal, Austria, and Langenlois, at 219 metres and with about 7,500 people, is usually described as the country’s largest wine-growing town. The Bründlmayer family has been making wine here since 1581.

Lucas Pichler and the precision of the Kellerberg

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

At 08:00 on the last Tuesday of October 2025 the Danube at Oberloiben was still under mist, and the only things above it were the castle ruin at Dürnstein and the top terraces of the Kellerberg, where I could hear secateurs before I could see anyone. Oberloiben is a hamlet on the north bank at the eastern end of the Wachau, the 36 km stretch of Danube gorge between Melk and Krems that is the classic heart of white wine in Austria. The F.X. Pichler estate has stood here since 1905. Its cellar, built in 2009, stands in the vines between the village and Dürnstein, in a Ried called Klostersatz, at about 203 metres.

Nikolaihof and the Riesling that waited seventeen years

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0100

The mist was still on the Danube when I crossed the bridge from Stein to Mautern in the last week of October 2025. It was 09:00 and 6 °C, and the terraces on the north bank were already in sun while the south bank, where I was going, sat in shade until almost eleven. Mautern is the quiet side of the Wachau, opposite Krems and Stein, about 200 metres above sea level, and it is where the Austrian part of my year usually begins. Nikolaihof is a gate in a wall on Nikolaigasse, and the wall is older than the gate.

Richard Stávek and the field blends of Němčičky

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Němčičky is forty kilometres south-east of my door in Brno, forty minutes on a clear morning. It is one of the five villages of the Modré Hory, the Blue Hills of the Velké Pavlovice sub-region of South Moravia, in Czechia, so called because more than half of their vines are dark-skinned varieties. The village is hilly, around 250 to 300 metres, on loam over sandstone, and it has a farm that also makes wine. The farmer is Richard Stávek.

Miloš Michlovský and the textbook cellar of Rakvice

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Rakvice sits where the loess hills of the Velké Pavlovice sub-region run out and the Dyje floodplain begins, about 45 minutes south of my flat in Brno. The old Amber Route passed this way, and the village still has the feel of a place on the road to somewhere else: flat, open, the Pálava limestone a grey line on the western horizon. I arrived on a Tuesday in late October with the vines gone yellow, mist still lying over the floodplain at 09:30 and the car thermometer at 8 °C. This is South Moravia, Czechia, at its least picturesque, and for one kind of wine at its most serious.

Oldřich Drápal Jr. and the sunny hill of Popice

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0100

The D2 out of Brno is dull for half an hour, then the Pálava hills stand up out of the plain on the right and the road remembers where it is. At Popice I turn off, climb through the village and come out on a slope that faces the hills across a sheet of water. This is Sonberk, in the Mikulov sub-region of South Moravia, Czechia: 40 hectares of loess, one long roof, and the view the whole region is photographed for.

Petr Nejedlík and the qvevri buried near Znojmo

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Znojmo is an hour south-west of my door in Brno: 70 kilometres of road that leaves the city, crosses the flat country around Pohořelice and climbs gently toward the Austrian border. I drove it on the last Friday of October, when the vineyards of the Znojmo sub-region of South Moravia, in Czechia, are at their best: Veltliner leaves gone yellow, the Podyjí forest copper behind them.

Petr Koráb and the living hill of Boleradice

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200

Boleradice is forty minutes south-east of my door in Brno: forty kilometres of road that leaves the city, crosses the motorway and narrows between fields of maize and sunflower stubble. The village has about 900 people, a church on a rise and, on its edge, a hill with a door in it. Behind the door is the cellar of Petr Koráb, one of the small natural producers who have made the Velké Pavlovice sub-region of South Moravia, in Czechia, the densest natural-wine scene in the country.

Milan Nestarec and the energy in a Velké Bílovice glass

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200

Velké Bílovice is forty-five minutes south-east of my flat in Brno, and I drive the road often enough to notice when a vineyard changes hands. It is the largest wine municipality in Czechia: about 750 hectares of vines, around a thousand growers, nearly every household with a plot and a cellar, and one of the warmest places in the country. No town in the Velké Pavlovice sub-region grows more, and this is where Milan Nestarec keeps his cellar. It was the third week of September, the Frankovka was a week or so from picking, and the car thermometer read 19 °C at 09:00.

Domaine Huet and the whole of Chenin in Vouvray

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200

The frost had not lifted from the plateau when I turned off the river road into Vouvray in the first week of February 2025, the day after La Dive Bouteille packed up its tables in Saumur. Vouvray sits on the north bank of the Loire 10 km east of Tours, in the Touraine stretch of the Loire that I tour in France, and Domaine Huet’s cellars are on the rue de la Croix-Buisée, on the first plateau at 80 to 100 metres. At 09:30 it was minus two. The pruning crews were already out in Le Haut-Lieu, and every cut cane lay white on the ground.

Pierre Larmandier and the chalk of Vertus

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200

Vertus at 09:20 on a June morning smells of cut grass, mown between the rows and left where it fell. Vertus is the southernmost of the big villages on the Côte des Blancs, the slope of Chardonnay that runs south from Épernay, and it is the corner of Champagne, in the north-east of France, that I would choose if I could visit only one. Arthur Larmandier met us at the gate of Larmandier-Bernier holding a spade, which turned out to be for me. He wanted me to see how far the topsoil went before the chalk began: about the length of the blade. Most of what matters about this estate, and about grower champagne, follows from that.

Claude-Édouard Geoffray and the blue stone of Brouilly

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0200

Château Thivin sits in Odenas at the foot of Mont Brouilly, and from the yard the hill fills the sky: 484 metres of old volcanic rock with a chapel on top and vines on every flank. I arrived at 09:00 on a June morning with the Saône plain already hazy. Claude-Édouard Geoffray had a piece of the hill in his hand and gave it to me before he said good morning. Blue-grey, heavy, cold, rust along one edge. This is the Côte de Brouilly, in the Beaujolais of eastern France, and the stone is most of the story.

Mathieu and Camille Lapierre and the cold cellar of Morgon

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0200

At 09:30 on the first Tuesday of June it was already 24 °C in the yard at Domaine Marcel Lapierre, and by 09:40, three steps inside the cellar door, I was wishing I had brought a jumper. The Lapierres keep their cellar cold as a matter of method, not comfort, and that change in the air is the first thing every guest notices. Villié-Morgon sits in the granite north of Beaujolais, an hour from Lyon in eastern France, under the dark hump of the Côte du Py. It is a small village with a large argument attached: modern natural wine was worked out here in practice, vat by vat, from 1981.

Jean-François Ganevat and the old vines of Rotalier

Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 +0200

Rotalier is a village of a few hundred people in the Sud-Revermont, the southern end of the Jura vineyard in eastern France, about 15 kilometres south of Lons-le-Saunier. The slopes here are steeper than at Arbois and the vines are fewer: small parcels of Chardonnay and Savagnin cut into marl and limestone between woods and pasture. The October I first drove there it had rained all night, which in the Jura is not news, and by 09:30 the cloud was lifting off the ridge in strips.

Stéphane Tissot and the parcels of Arbois

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0200

The rain that everyone warns you about in the Jura arrived at 09:40, ten minutes after I had parked in Montigny-lès-Arsures. Stéphane Tissot looked at the sky, then at my shoes, and decided the vines could wait until after the cellar. Montigny sits 3 km north of Arbois on the Revermont, the western foot of the Jura mountains in eastern France, and the Jura takes about 1,100 mm of rain a year, which is one reason it makes the wines it does. Cold, wet, late. Nobody here is in a hurry.

Antonio and Salvino Benanti and the sea stone of Milo

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0200

The road round Etna is longer than the map suggests. From Randazzo on the north slope to Viagrande on the south-east it is 55 kilometres and a good hour and a quarter. I made the drive on a clear afternoon in late October, and when I turned in at the Benanti gate at the foot of Monte Serra the summit behind me wore a white thread of steam and the light was going gold. This is the quieter side of Etna, in eastern Sicily, Italy: closer to the sea than the north, and home to the estate the trade treats as the classic Etna reference.

Frank Cornelissen and the buried clay of Solicchiata

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

The road east from Randazzo runs along the north slope of Etna at about 650 metres, through Passopisciaro and then Solicchiata, two hamlets of Castiglione di Sicilia that a stranger would take for one village. The walls on both sides are black lava stone. On the first Tuesday of November I drove it at 08:30 with the heater on, 7 °C outside, and above the vines the summit had its first snow and a thread of steam. This is the Sicily that guests on my Italy tours do not expect: a mountain, not a beach.

Luca Roagna and the slow cellar of Barbaresco

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0100

The fog was still lying in the Tanaro valley when I turned off the road below Barbaresco at 08:50 and climbed toward Località Paglieri. The tower of the village, visible from half the Langhe on a clear day, had gone. It was the first week of November in Piedmont, north-west Italy, a month after the Nebbiolo harvest, and the vineyards had turned the colour of a fox. Luca Roagna stood at the end of a row with wet boots and a thermos, and offered me the coffee before he offered me his hand.

Giuseppe Vaira and the stained glass of Vergne

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0100

The fog was still lying in the Tanaro valley when I left Alba at 08:00, and it stayed below me the whole way up. Barolo village sits at about 300 metres; Vergne, the last hamlet before the road tips over towards La Morra, sits higher, and when I parked outside the G.D. Vajra cellar the vines were in clear late-October sun and the valley was a white sea. Vergne is the highest part of the Barolo commune, somewhere between 350 and 480 metres, and it is one reason I keep bringing groups to Piedmont, in the north-west of Italy, in autumn. The Langhe explains itself best from the top.

Saša Radikon and the slow Ribolla of Oslavia

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The road out of Gorizia climbs for four kilometres and then Oslavia simply happens: a scatter of houses, a church, the white ossuary of the Isonzo front on its hill, and vines on every slope that faces the light. This is the Collio, the border hills of Friuli in the far north-east of Italy, and Slovenia begins somewhere in the next row. It was the last week of October, it had rained all night, and the ponca in the lane had gone the colour of wet cardboard. At 09:30 the thermometer on my dashboard read 11 °C.

Joško Gravner and the qvevri of Oslavia

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Oslavia is four kilometres above the centre of Gorizia, at the eastern edge of Italy, and the border with Slovenia runs through the vines. The ridge sits at 150 to 200 metres in the Friuli Collio, on ponca, the crumbling marl and sandstone that every grower here will put in your hand. At the top of the hill is the ossuary of 1938. Below it, on a Tuesday at the end of October, I parked outside the Gravner cellar at 10:00 in a thin drizzle, the thermometer at 11 °C.

Baia Abuladze and the churi of Obcha

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Obcha sits at 324 metres in the Baghdati municipality of Imereti, the western half of Georgia that most wine travellers never reach. From Kutaisi you drive forty minutes south along the Khanistskali river, through Baghdati itself, the town where Mayakovsky was born, and up into a country of maize fields, walnut trees and vines strung on wires between them. It had rained in the night. At 10:00 the yard was still wet and the air was 17 °C, which in late October in Imereti counts as cool.

Gogi Dakishvili and the two cellars of Kisiskhevi

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Kisiskhevi is fifteen minutes from Telavi, the capital of Kakheti in eastern Georgia, and a little higher: the village stands at 620 metres on the same side of the Alazani valley as Telavi, inside the Tsinandali appellation. The vines grow on the reddish, lime-rich clays that give Tsinandali its whites. Across the valley the Greater Caucasus takes the northern cold, and on a clear afternoon in early October you can count the snowfields.

Château Mukhrani and the prince who studied in Bordeaux

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Mukhrani is 45 minutes north-west of Tbilisi, and the road there is the road every visitor to Georgia takes at least once: out past Mtskheta, where the Aragvi meets the Mtkvari under the Jvari church, then onto a flat plain at 550 metres that the guidebooks skip. This is Kartli, the old heart of the country, a broad, windy shelf of stony ground with the Caucasus foothills blue to the north. In early October the poplars along the irrigation ditches had turned yellow and the vine rows were half picked.

Ramaz Nikoladze and the qvevri in a garden near Kutaisi

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Nakhshirghele is half an hour east of Kutaisi, at 197 metres, in the Terjola municipality of Imereti, the western half of Georgia’s wine country. The road leaves town along the Rioni and turns into lanes lined with hazel and persimmon. It was the last week of October, 19 °C, and it had been raining since dawn, which in Imereti is not weather so much as a condition of the air.

Iago Bitarishvili and the two Chinuris of Chardakhi

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0200

The wind is the first thing. You leave Tbilisi on the Mtskheta road, follow the Mtkvari, and somewhere past the old capital the air starts to move in a way it never does in the city. Chardakhi sits at 604 metres on the slope above the river, about thirty kilometres north-west of Tbilisi, and by the time I parked at the gate, a little after 10:30 on a morning in early October, my jacket was zipped to the chin. This is Kartli, the middle of Georgia, and the wind here is not a nuisance. It is the reason the wine tastes the way it does.

John Wurdeman and the qvevri of Pheasant's Tears

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Sighnaghi sits at 836 metres on a ridge at the south-eastern end of the Alazani valley, in Kakheti, the region that grows roughly seventy per cent of Georgia’s grapes. King Erekle II walled the town in 1762 and the walls are still there. From the top of the town you see the whole valley and, on a clear morning, the Greater Caucasus behind it.

Armen Khalatyan and the old bridge over the Arpa

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

The bridge comes first. You see it from the road before you see the winery: a stone arch from the thirteenth century, standing in a field on the far side of the Arpa river as if the road it once carried had wandered off and left it behind. Old Bridge Winery in Yeghegnadzor, in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor, is named after it. The cellar and the family house face it across the water, and on a still evening in June the arch and its reflection close into a full circle.

Juliana Del Aguila Eurnekian and 400 hectares under Ararat

Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0200

The road west from Yerevan runs flat for an hour. Past Etchmiadzin the orchards give way to fields, the fields to vines, and the vines do not stop. Mount Ararat stands on the left the whole way, 5,137 metres of it, close enough that you keep checking whether it has moved. It has not. This is Armavir, the Ararat plain of Armenia, and the estate at the end of the road is Karas Wines.

Vahe Keushguerian and the sparkling vines of Khachik

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200

A towel over the label#

I met Vahe Keushguerian the way I meet most people who make a wine that puzzles me: I asked who was behind the bottle. It was a list in Yerevan, years ago, and the line read traditional-method sparkling, Voskehat and Khatouni, Vayots Dzor. Armenia does many things very well. Until 2013, traditional-method sparkling from its own grapes was not one of them, and Keush was the first.

Voskevaz and the karas hall of Aragatsotn

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The karas hall at Voskevaz is the coolest room in Aragatsotn on a September afternoon. Outside, the thermometer in the minibus read 29 °C, which is ordinary for Armenia in late September, and the flagstones of the yard were too hot to sit on. Inside, three steps down, the air smelled of wet clay and old wine, and I watched a guest from Brno lay her palm flat on a karas and leave it there, like someone warming her hands on a radiator in reverse.

Hovakim Saghatelyan and the organic vines of Aghavnadzor

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100

A storm over Aghavnadzor#

The storm crossed the valley ahead of us. By the time the minibus turned off the M2 at Aghavnadzor the rain had moved on toward Yeghegnadzor, the light was coming back over the slopes, and a rainbow stood on the mountain above the village for as long as it took us to park. It was the first week of October in Vayots Dzor, Armenia. The harvest was mostly in, and the air smelled of wet dust and crushed grapes.

Zorik Gharibian and the buried karas of Rind

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The road from Areni up to Rind climbs about twelve kilometres and gains the better part of four hundred metres. You leave the Arpa river and the roadside stalls with their plastic bottles of homemade wine, the cliffs go from red to grey, and the air changes. It was the first week of October, harvest time in Vayots Dzor, the high wine country of Armenia, and at 08:30 the thermometer in the village read 6 °C. By noon it would be 24. That gap, repeated every day of the growing season, is most of what you need to know about wine up here.