No replies to this topic

[ScottS]

Idajack sent me some of these for sampling.Camas Prairie WineryStrawberry - I was assaulted by strawberry upon popping the cork. This is a good thing, because it takes a ton of strawberries to get a balanced strawberry flavor and odor into a mead. Very nice sweetness/acidity balance, strong pleasant strawberry flavor, just plain good stuff. 8/10Raspberry - Similar to strawberry, but a bit lighter on the fruit. Pleasant, but not as flavorful. 7/10Huckleberry - Not balanced. The huckleberry flavor was light enough that it was barely distinguishable as fruit. The color obviously came from the fruit, and it was gorgeous. But the only significant flavor contribution from the fruit was acidity. It was definitely drinkable (meaning I didn't feel at all compelled to dump it), but it wasn't nearly as good as the others. 5/10Sweet Show Mead - Very light in color. I don't know what varietal they used, but it's about the color of mead made from alfalfa honey. Fairly light in flavor too. I think all of these sweet meads may have had acid added for balance, though my suspicion is particularly strong on this show mead. I can almost talk myself into picking out citric acid as a distinct flavor. I think it's a bit overdone in this case, actually. Sweet, light in flavor, strong in acidity, not quite unbalanced, but close. 6/10All of them have a bit of a medicinal nature to them, which may or may not go away with some more aging. Frankly, I've only found one or two commercial meads that did not have a medicinal nature, so I can't knock these meads too badly for that. I'd say that the strawberry and raspberry are some of the better commercial meads I've had, probably easily in the top 5. I didn't give 9s and 10s because I've had better mead, but it was all small-batch homebrew. I'd say that this line is on average one of the best commercial lines I've had. Redstone Reserve is the only commercial melomel that unquestionably stands above these, and that's $50/500mls, last time I checked (quite a few years ago).