A Connoisseur of Mead

More random internet wanderings have led me to an interesting article from a South African Mead producer, Makana, that I suspect will spawn several posts.

How to drink mead
Mead is a sophisticated beverage. The flavours in honey are more complex and subtle than those in fruit or malt, hence the mead drinker develops a very discerning palate.
The mouth must be cleared of foreign uncomplimentary tastes, such as toothpaste or peppermints. This is best achieved with a light snack - cheese, pickled quails eggs, light meats or the like.
The mead should be chilled in a fridge for at least an hour before consumption. It is best to let the mead stand in the fridge for 48 hours as this allows it to settle into the bottle and recover from any shaking it may have received on the way from the Meadery to your fridge. Some mead drinkers place ice in the mead - it is important to use good quality water for making the ice as the chlorine in tap water will affect the taste of the mead.
Mead should be poured gently into the same type of glasses used for red wines. This allows a decent amount of mead to contact the atmosphere and develops the bouquet of the mead.
If you have not consumed mead before, we recommend that you start with a semi-sweet mead. This can be either a spiced or plain mead. Once you have become acquainted with mead in this way you may migrate to less sweet and dry meads.

Now this is clearly the result of Mead drinking in the modern age, in a hot country. Although the idea of letting Mead settle is interesting, none of the commercial meads I’ve drunk so far have had sediment, so I’m now interested in finding a wilder Mead that does.

What to drink mead with
Mead is an excellent accompaniment to most savoury dishes. Sweeter meads tend to go well with spicier foods while dry meads are excellent served with delicate dishes such as chicken, duck, fish and calamari.
All meals should be consumed with good friends, music and conversation as has been the way for thousands of years.

Are you a mead connoisseur, or do you want to be?
Wines and beers are normally from a specific region, or culture, whereas there is a mead, or a record of a mead, for nearly every human culture that has lived with bees.
Hence a mead connoisseur needs to know about the world, and about our planet's cultures. A mead connoisseur needs to understand that a bottle of Kurpiosky Polish mead is going to be very different, yet share a lot in common with a bottle of Makana Meadery African mead from the other side of the world. A bottle of Munro's Mead from Canada will be very different to a bottle of Medovina Hurka from Slovenia.
A mead connoisseur will understand that bees visit thousands of different species of flowers all over the world, making millions of combinations of flavours in their honey every year. Whereas in wine making we are limited to a handful of cultivars of grapes, mead makers have access to honey - a magical mixture of natural flower nectar which will always be different as you never get exactly the same flowers flowering at exactly the same time every year!!
For a mead maker this great diversity of honey types forms the foundation of the art and science of mead making. The style of mead making adds further levels of complexity to the product.
A mead connoisseur is somebody who can appreciate diversity, uniqueness, and above all live with the fact that the chances are she or he will open a bottle of mead, enjoy it and probably never be able to buy another bottle which tastes exactly the same!

Well to what extent is a Drinker of Mead a connoisseur? I’ve drunk a fair amount of Mead, rarely the same variety twice, and I’d agree they’re never the same so it’s hard to tell.

I also like the image of honey as a magical mixture of flower nectars, transformed into Mead by the art of a Craftsman.

Perhaps once I’ve settled on a favored few I can try different years and see if my taste buds can tell the difference.