Dominic Hentall
Italy
Dominic's Wines
- Italy
- 13 wines
- 5 styles
Concert pianist, car tinkerer, employee number 42... and the man behind some of Naked's most loved wines
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Dom’s been part of the furniture here for over a decade and Angels have adored his bottles since day one. Whether he’s blending elegant white Burgundies or rich, sun-soaked southern Italian wines – his style is all about balance and elegance. Big on flavour. But always with freshness and drinkability in mind.
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Fun fact! Dom didn’t originally join us as a winemaker… he actually came on board as a QC consultant – helping make all our wines as delicious as possible. He fell so hard for the middleman-cutting mission that one day a week grew to two, then three… and eventually Dom was Naked full-time, helping launch Naked in the US and Australia before switching to making his own wines.
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Ditching corporate wine consultancy to go all-in for Angels gave Dom the freedom to stop compromising. Your backing means he can focus entirely on the unique parcels he loves. His secret? Working with old vines, hand-picked fruit, and close-knit family growers he’s known for years.
Vineyard Location
Dominic Hentall's Story
"I’ve always called it the Naked Wines family, right from the start, and I still believe that. If I am part of Naked, I am part of Naked for good."
Pianos, pistons, and blooping flower wine
I grew up on a farm where wine was just something served at Sunday lunch, and it was very much not to my teenage taste. But while I wasn’t keen on drinking it yet, I was entirely fascinated by how it came to life. My mother used to make homemade wine from all sorts of flowers and berries she gathered around the farm. I still vividly remember the kitchen rack above the old Aga filled with glass demijohns, all blooping away as the wines fermented. Helping her rack the juice until it was clear and hand-bottling the finished wine was probably where my real obsession began.
At that point, though, wine wasn't the career plan. Music and fast cars were my world. I studied the piano from a young age and completed all my grades with the Royal Academy of Music board before I was 16. My father also raced sports cars as a hobby, so I was tinkering with engines from the age of 10 – something I still happily do today.
When I was 18, destined to study music at university, I took a gap year to France to help a family rebuild a large house in the Basque country. It was there, seeing wine treated as a natural part of everyday life, that something shifted. I ended up picking my first grapes for the 1984 harvest in Saint-Émilion at Château Chauvin. It was a notoriously tough vintage, but a defining one for me. The head winemaker took me under his wing and, one day, set out six wines to ask for my thoughts. I gave them, completely unaware it was a test. He looked at me and said, "You've got a palate for this"... although it was more 'en Francais' of course.
The global wine adventure (and becoming employee #42)
I eventually ran out of money and had to return to the UK. My father was distinctly unimpressed that I had abandoned my musical career in favour of grape juice, so I had to hustle. I did a bit of everything: managed a posh restaurant in Kent, worked in London hotels, played as a professional pianist in a Swiss ski resort, and even did specialist turbo design for sports cars.
But the wine bug had bitten hard. I went back to university to get a business management degree specialising in winemaking, working part-time at Majestic Wine in Oxford to truly understand what styles the UK consumer loved. After graduating, I landed a role as an assistant winemaker in Australia at the prestigious Leasingham Winery in the Clare Valley, working with some of the country's top talents for three vintages while alternating harvests back in France as a flying winemaker.
Eventually, I was head-hunted by a massive UK importer to serve as their Chief Winemaker. For nearly ten years, I traveled the world making and blending wines across Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, California, and Europe. I produced wines for almost every major UK supermarket, winning piles of gold medals and trophies along the way. But dealing with giant, disconnected wine corporations gets exhausting. I wanted the freedom to highlight unique parcels of grapes without corporate interference.
That’s when I discovered Naked Wines.
I came on board over a decade ago as a technical Quality Control consultant. I was employee number 42 in the entire company. Eamon was number 43 – we both beat Toby! In those early days, Naked was so small that "building the company" literally meant Eamon, Rowan, and I putting together flat-pack office tables and chairs in Napa and the UK.
One day a week quickly grew to two, then three, and soon I was full-time. Eamon and I spent 30 days straight on the road setting up Naked Australia, crashing in the same hotel rooms, and interviewing every single winemaker who joined. I was even the one who brought in Naked legends like Stephen Millier. I helped shape the technical wine profiles that built this place. But after a few years of building the framework for everyone else, I decided it was time to take a risk, stop consulting, and go all-in making wines under my own name.
My winemaking philosophy: balance, balance, balance
For me, great winemaking starts long before anything reaches the cellar. It starts in the vineyard: tasting grapes, understanding the site, and deciding exactly which rows to pick first. My job is simply to understand the fruit well enough to step back and let nature shine.
That is why I work so closely with long-standing family growers I’ve known for decades. It's why so many of my wines come from old vines and hand-picked fruit. Whether I'm blending a Sicilian red or a white Burgundy, there’s a strong sense of place, balance, and elegance. Big on flavour, absolutely – but always with freshness, shape, and drinkability in mind. To me, if a wine is "heavy," it means it's not balanced. A wine can be wonderfully full-bodied without making you feel weighed down.
The Naked family
My absolute favourite memories since joining Naked will always be the Tasting Tours. I love meeting Angels face-to-face and seeing the genuine pleasure the bottles bring. There is also a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek competitive streak among the winemakers on tour. We are all secretly competing for Wine of the Month or trying to top the tour charts (and my wines have luckily taken the crown a few times!).
That camaraderie and playful banter are exactly what makes this a family. The wine trade can sometimes get corporate and disconnected, but your direct support keeps the original spirit of Naked alive. Your loyalty gives me the focus to keep refining these wines for you year after year.
