The Platter guide to SA wines has been running for more than 20 consecutive years.
There have always been lots of small wineries in places like Burgundy, where the average piece of land under one ownership is less than 1 hectare.
But in the lands of Big is Better, like California and the south east corner of Australia, tiny cellars are sprouting at the rate of over 1 a day.
In South Africa, the annually produced Platter guide to wine documents every label from every brand and documents a similar phenomenon.
In 2000, Platter had 240 cellars and wine traders and this year’s edition covers 700, with nearly half of these making less than 7000 cases of wine a year.
And all of this is in roughly the same national vineyard area.
South Africa has not expanded vineyards (much) but replaced unfashionable varietals with whatever seems like a good idea.