My local brew shop doesn't have mead yeast, or any of the other yeasts cited as being commonly used in the Newbee guide. Should I use red or whte wine yeast? The ones I'm looking at have a tolerance of 12-14 % (red) and 14% (white). The recipe I will use is for a sweet mead.
Either. Though I'd suggest that if you can, try to obtain Lalvin K1V-1116 which is their Montpellier yeast. It's good for 16% or so.
As for it being for a "sweet mead", well it's as sweet as you want it to be. Whatever the recipe, if it's fermented dry, you can back sweeten it later to your taste. So don't let recipes etc (and HBS sales people) confuse you with that.
If you make it from a gravity reading that will make it to, say, 14% and it ferments dry because the yeast is capable of that, then fine let it go dry and then once it's racked, cleared, etc etc, use sulphite and sorbate to stabilise it and then use honey, honey syrup or whatever to sweeten it back up.....
regards
fatbloke