You can check in iTunes: Edit/Preferences/Devices, you should see a panel with a list of dated backups. For me there is only one. I haven't figured out yet if it's possible to make it do more than one.
The page sited in prior post says "Since iTunes only keeps one backup per device..." so maybe it's always one. Apple suggest that the directory where iTunes backups are kept should be backed up elsewhere (Timemachine, etc) to give access to multiple backups. Not so convenient.
This page (
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1414) implies there are multiple backups by showing a dropdown list where you can pick one. It's a bit misleading.
The dilemma I would like to solve is that, through some blunders on my part, I lost some app data that I would like to recover. I was upgrading OS on the iPhone, and in that process two backups were taken automatically. The second one did not have the data I want back. I was hoping there were several backups and that I could restore the data from one of them. Seems it's not so.