In what turned out to be the perfect match of small production wines meeting a one-of-a-kind wine shop, The Wine Bottega in Boston's North End hosted a tasting of wine from the Louis/Dressner portfolio.

Louis/Dressner is an importer with a portfolio of over 60 vignerons in France, Italy and Portugal. The company carries no individual brands. Instead, its principals work with a group of highly passionate growers to produce wines that are hand crafted and original.

"Louis/Dressner is pushing the boundary of what's available for wine in the United States," said Kerri Pratt, the owner of the Wine Bottega. "They're really focusing on the small production, interesting, off-the-beaten path, regions and grapes that you've never heard of which, to us, makes it really exciting."

After having spent several years in the wine business both in the United States and abroad, Pratt purchased The Wine Bottega in October 2008 and dedicated her shop to be one for "discovering and sharing small production, hand-crafted wines from around the globe."

"We said, 'Let's go all the way [with unique wines]'," Pratt said. "Everything should have a story behind it. We want to know who the winemaker is, and we want to be able to share that with people.”

However, Pratt noted that there was some difficulty in trying to sell a unique selection of wines to a public inundated with advertising for brand names.

"It's tricky because if you have the unique things, and you also have the 'safe' things, a lot of people are just going to come in and gravitate toward the 'safe' wines. But we’re very much here to answer any questions and help people find something - that dialogue is very important,” Pratt said.

In this segment, we take part in the tasting event and in speak with Pratt and Matteo Mollo, also of The Wine Bottega, as well as Lee Cambpell of Louis/Dressner and learn quite a bit about the how the unique variety in both the shop and portfolio have made strides in the way we think about and purchase our wines.