The Best Mead Wine To Try This Year

For everything, there is a season and that includes varieties of mead wine. There are dozens of variations on mead, and some are better dispositioned to be summer drinks, when the weather calls for something light, crisp and refreshing. There are others that are bold, flavorful and pair well with hearty foods and are best-suited to winter.

Just as with fine beers and ales, some meads are just better suited to certain seasons.

Here are some great meads to enjoy this winter:

1. Spiced Honey Mead

Just like with wine or cider, Spiced Honey Mead is made with a selection of spices to delight the palette. Mulled wines and ciders are an Old World tradition during the winter months, as the spiced wine or cider invigorates the taste buds and makes the libations feel so much more festive.

Our spiced mead isn’t made with mulling spices per se (mulled mead is a thing) but it is still a very good winter mead. It pairs well with hearty roast foods such as turkey or pork, both of which being very popular during the winter months and common as holiday meals such as Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham.

It is best served slightly chilled, and can be made even more delicious by adding a sprig of cinnamon or mint to the glass.

2. Maple Honey Wine

Our Maple Honey Mead has maple syrup added to the honey, though not so much that the maple syrup overpowers the mead. The result is a smooth, darkly sweet and slightly savory mead that is best sipped at.

It accompanies meals and desserts very well, though it tends to pair best with darker flavors. Barbecued or otherwise smoked meats, beef roasts, chocolate, hardy cheeses all pair extremely well with this mead as the darker but sweet flavor meshes very well with those foods. Heavier, darker dishes are common during winter and this mead pairs very well with just those.

It would also go pretty well with pancakes or waffles…and it’s also incredible just by itself.

3. Chokecherry Honey Mead

The western states (including our home state of Montana!) are known for chokecherries, a wild cherry varietal that’s famous for not being too sweet during the typical cherry harvest season. Instead, chokecherries only being to sweeten with the arrival of the frost. As a result, they are a tart fruit but are sweet when picked at the right time.

Our Chokecherry Mead is a natural step. Montanans (and natives of other Western states) have been making chokecherry jams, jellies and chokecherry wines for decades. It’s only fitting that we also flavor our mead with them.

This mead won us our first medal, and you will taste why when you drink it. It’s not too sour…but also not too sweet. As chokecherries are a wonderful late season fruit, this is a fantastic late season mead…though it can be found year ’round.

4. Elderberry Mead

Elderberry is a dark berry that has been used medicinally for thousands of years as well as being eaten, and it is the dark, sweet qualities of elderberry that we’ve selected them to make our Elderberry Mead. The result is a thick, sweetish mead that is best paired with darker chocolates or sharp cheeses.

Our Elderberry Mead is most similar to a port, as it is dark, rich and demands to be sipped on at a relaxed pace. The mouthfeel is very similar to a robust port, but the distinctive elderberry taste sets it apart from mere sweetened wines.

It’s at it’s best slightly chilled, but is a wonderful companion to dessert or well-suited dish.

5. The King’s Melomel

A melomel is a mead flavored with berries, though we took a slightly different tack and flavored The King’s Melomel with tart cherries. This gives the wine a tart edge, which some rate as being more tart than our Chokecherry Mead.

As a result, this mead pairs well with desserts that have cherries – such as Cherries Jubilee, Black Forest cakes, cherry pie – and dishes involving roasted meats lighter than beef, such as turkey or pork. As savory foods are so much more popular in winter, The King’s Melomel comes into it’s own alongside them.

Winter Mead Season Is Upon Us

These are the best mead wines made by Hidden Legend Winery, and they will brighten up your holidays, add something to winter dining and delight your and anyone else’s palette that happens to sample them. We only produce mead that we know to be excellent, and our track record of award-winning meads goes to prove that we know how to make quality meads. Enjoy!