Boutique Winemakers bottle no more that 250 or 300 tonnes of grapes under their own label each year. This equates to about 2000 cases of wine.

Boutique winemakers are reputed to make the most interesting wines. This is because they have the flexibility to 'change the recipe' to suit the year. This approach involves a greater amount of risk than that taken by the large commercial winery.

This is the sector of the wine industry where the consumer gets to appreciate the real passion, excitement, sweat and toil that has gone into each bottle of boutique wine.

In effect, boutique wine is hand made, from the grapes through to the final bottle. There is a story to every bottle. The keen can visit the vineyard and touch the very vines that produced the grapes that went into the boutique wine.

However, there are probably thousands of boutique labels around. How do you find them?

You are unlikely to find boutique wine in the large liquor stores. One of the most pleasant experiences in life is to sample fantastic wines at the cellar door of small boutique wineries. Of course, as there are many wine regions and hundreds of boutique wineries, it is challenging to visit them all.