Honeywood Winery Oregon Mead

[kash]

According to the website and the back of the bottle ( http://www.honeywoodwinery.com/mall/productpage.asp?prod=414 ) This still mead is made from white clover honey, and plenty of it. It comes in at 11% ABV and still sports an SG of 1.063 (at 70 degrees, I still don't know how to adjust for nonstandard temp.) Does that classify as sweet or Dessert for you? I don't doubt that the White Clover honey is good, but by the time it got to me it was devoid of any of the promised "fresh and floral". Instead it was mostly sweet on the tongue with a sugary/alcohol nose. Just judging by the amount of honey left by the time it was bottled, White clover must be a bargin.

It would be hard to fault Honeywood winery for producing Honey flavored wine. Most people that read a label with "Honey... Mead... Honey" and drop a mere $11 for a bottle probably aren't expecting anything other than alcoholic pancake topping. It's not that it's not good, it's just not a complex bottle. Crystal clear and golden amber in color without any hint of sediment or carbination, it seems the mazer's technique was good, if not the recipie.

If it sounds like I'm panning Oregon Mead, I'm not. It gets a passing grade of "C". No technical faults, except the rather subjective "too sweet for my taste, and probably most people's". This mead would be wonderfully accompanied by cold pizza, a wet dog at your feet and any Vincent Price rerun on commercial TV. Come to think of it, a B grade movie would probably be a little "up scale" for this bottle of Honeywood.

kash

 

[pain]

I haven't really liked any of the Honeywood I've come across. The bottles I got here in NC were unbalanced, with a barnyard flavor to them. Since they don't (to my knowledge) use buckwheat honey, I didn't expect that. I don't stock any in my cellar, and the last bottle I got was poured out after the first glass.

Its possible the bottle I got was travel-shocked, but until I get one that doesn't taste like the one I had, I'll hold off for now.

I suppose I'll ask them to send out bottles for an official review by the GM Review Team, for a formal tasting.

 

[matt_maples]

Vicky;

None of the Honeywood I have come across up here has any off flavors to it. You may be getting bad bottles. I mean it is hard enough to sell here locally so who knows how long it was abused before you got it.

I tend to agree Kash, it is not BAD mead it is just SOOOOOOOOOO unimaginative I do not know why they bother. Honeywood is really known for their fruit wines. They do those well so I really don’t know why they don’t try and blend a little to come up with something interesting. Their Portland distributor will not carry the mead so it is hard for me to stock. I do carry their blackberry cider. Although sweeter than I like it that does have great flavor and is well made.


Matt

 

[pain]

Hiya Matt,

Could be I'm remembering a different mead too....I've been known to mis-remember if its one that I don't have written notes on, and there are at *least* 2 meaderies with 'Honey' in their names.

As I say, until I've a bottle to do a formal tasting on (and I think I've one coming from Montana), I'll not render any formal opinion.....maybe it was Honey*Run* I'm thinking of.....

 

[kash]

I'm glad my opinion is supported. I kinda felt like a heel posting a negative review. I thought that would be one way to get the cold shoulder, panning the favorite subject around here. I was actually hoping to fine another one of their wines and come back and say something nice about it. If for nothing else than to save a little karma.

To be fair, as there is no accounting for taste, this might be right up someone's alley.

 

[Oskaar]

I think honest reviews are always welcome.

That being said, I also believe that when people are tasting and reviewing things they tend to become critics rather than observers. In that sense it is very easy to pan a mead and overlook the positive points. I don't think that you were overly critical of the mead, and the final B grade you suggested indicates that you considered the mead in total rather than letting the sweetness turn you off and hold that as the prime requisite to your evaluation.

I generally tend to comment my reviews in three parts appearance, aroma and flavor, then finally impressions. Take a look at the yeast test comments and other commercial mead reviews I've done and maybe they'll be helpful, then again maybe not.

Hope that helps,

Oskaar

 

[pain]

Kash, don't *ever* feel like you have to give a good review to stay popular. I'll thrash anyone that gives you crap for being honest, and *they'll* get the cold shoulder, not you. Gotmead is *not* about sucking up to mead, good or bad. Its about how to make *good* mead, and how to *find* good mead.

Look, I review these things for a living as part of GM, and I know how hard it is to pan a mead. I had to pan one a couple months ago, and notify the meadery owner. We talked about it, and fortunately, his other meads were pretty good. The owner is a friend, an advertiser here, and someone I see. *Not* easy to say 'hey, X, that sweet mead was not up to the standards I've come to expect from you.'

However, what I am dedicated to here on GM is providing *accurate* information. If a commercial mead is terrible, and I say its' good, I'm doing a disservice to both the makers *and* the buyers. The makers, because if they don't realize that their mead isn't that good (and some really *don't* know a good mead), and the buyers because they've a right to know if they're spending their money well.

Vicky - honesty is the best policy, always

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Vicky - honesty is the best policy, always

Except when the question is "Do these jeans make me look fat?" At that point you're screwed no matter how you answer, but honesty puts you in the doghouse longest. Even silence won't save you.

Wrathwilde

 

[pain]

Nope, that's cheating on the part of the woman, *and* fishing for compliments. I'm not all that pretty, but I like people, and they seem to like me (at least I have a lot of friends!). If you have to fish for compliments, get a shrink, not a smaller pair of jeans. I know I'm chubby, try to control it, but don't worry too much about it. And my hubby loves me anyway. At least, after 20 years of marriage, he still grabs me and tells me he does.... :

I *know* when a pair of jeans make me look fat, I have eyes and a mirror (LOL...they *all* make me look fat, and I really don't care, I am who I am). I don't ask John that question, ever. >....I *do* tease him now and then about getting whiplash trying to see a pretty girl as we drive by, tho.....because he gets such a cute wry grin when I do. But then, I point them out, so I'm as much to blame as him.

Vicky - wondering what to wear to the NC Ren Faire tomorrow

 

[Oskaar]

Rather than lying and saying no or yes, I've found that faking a petite mal seizure tends to get me out of the situtation! LOL

cheers,

Oskaar

 

[epetkus]

... It's not that it's not good, it's just not a complex bottle...

kash

I have to agree with kash. I had a bottle I bought at the Portland airport going to Hood River last fall. It was very light golden color. Made with white clover honey. Initial mouthfeel was dull and uninteresting. Later notes of fruit remained on the palate. This has a traditional flavor, but it is quite subdued. It is a sweet/semi-sweet mead, not quite cloying, but just no excitement.

Eric

 

[billyO]

This mead would be wonderfully accompanied by cold pizza. . .
kash

Tonight I picked up a bottle from my local Fred Meyer, and wish I had read this review first as I may have saved $11. But because I already spent $11, I'll go in for another 2 cents...not terrible, but nothing spectacular either. Kash's review was (and still is) a fair assessment.

I can't speak to how it pairs with the pizza, because I drank it while making tacos. The second glass was sampled immediately after munching on some freshly chopped yellow onion, and THAT significantly improved the level of enjoyment compared to the first glass. So I guess if the pizza had double onions....

 

[GntlKnigt1]

Wow !! Seven years after the first review, and no improvement?

 

[mannye]

Now I want to try this. It seems from a lot of the comments that it's not THAT bad. I'll take a mild flavored drinking mead over a syrupy sweet "condiment mead" (my own classification) any day.

 

[billyO]

I'm not sure you should rush out, mannye. Not artificially, syrupy sweet like the Mountain Meadows Moonlight Magic, but still very sweet (my SG reading, 1.076-078), along the lines of the Sky River Sweet I opened last week, from a taste perspective (no SG reading on the Sky River). IMO, somewhere between sweet and "dessert sweet".