Margaret River Wine Centre Australian wines, wine, Australia, winery, vineyard,

Summer

	Boutique Wines Shine in Margaret River
	Margaret River's reputation as a premium wine producing region has never been based on whacking great conglomerates dominating the landscape. Nor has it been mighty consortiums with head office thousands of kilometres away, pouring limitless marketing dollars into spouting the virtues of the Margaret River investment. On the contrary, nearly all the wineries in the area started off as small pet projects, or even as a part-time hobby for their wine-loving owners. Today, the backbone of the local industry remains the same. The boutique winery tradition is alive and thriving here on the cape. What's more, some of Margaret River's most exciting wine comes from these little dynamos. Each vintage, an array of fantastic varietals and blends are found among the less-known labels in the region.

Individuality and terroir, microclimates and eccentricity, talent and experimentation are at the heart of their continuing success in an increasingly competitive wine world.

Indeed, far more medals are awarded collectively to the area's boutique wineries than its larger concerns. Perhaps this is because even in this age of high technology and on-site laboratories, great winemaking is still based on a deep affinity with the vineyard, trial and error in the winery and an intimate, hands-on approach to the process of vinification.

Often this is easier to achieve when you don't have 500 hectares of vines to tend, and a winery that looks like a small industrial area! These take a small army of staff, and even though it means the winery has made it into the big league, it can also signal the end of an intimacy which established a world-beating reputation in the first place.

Cognisant of this 'loss of soul', many Margaret River wineries have purposefully remained smallish, concentrating on quality over quantity.

Boutique winery Beckett's Flat

To prove our point, we set about the task of hunting down a dozen delightful wines from six boutique Margaret River wineries. Read about them inside, then order a case. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

- Ron Macfarlan

2000

archive