Melomel — tasting notes & food pairings

Melomel

Melomel — from the Greek melo (fruit) and meli (honey) — is mead fermented with fruit: a honey wine in which berries, stone fruit, apples, grapes or other fruit are fermented alongside the honey rather than simply flavouring a finished mead. The fruit lends colour, acidity, tannin and its own aromatics, turning the round, floral sweetness of straight mead into something brighter and more wine-like, and giving each batch the character of whatever fruit went in. Colours run from pale gold and blush to deep garnet, and the drink can be still or sparkling, bone-dry or lusciously sweet. At roughly 8 to 14 percent alcohol it sits squarely in wine territory, and named sub-styles abound — cyser (apple), pyment (grape), morat (mulberry) and many berry and stone-fruit melomels — all of them fruit meads under the one umbrella term.

Sweet-tart11% ABV

Glowing from pale gold and blush to deep garnet, melomel is aromatic and vinous: floral honey and nectar sit beneath a bright wave of fruit — raspberry, blackcurrant, cherry, peach or apple, depending on the batch — with the fruit's own acidity keeping the honey sweetness in check. It can finish bone-dry, off-dry or richly sweet and be still or gently sparkling; medium-light and warming at around 8 to 14 percent alcohol, it closes with a clean, winey, fruit-and-honey lift. Best served chilled in a wine glass, alongside cheese, charcuterie or fruit desserts, or simply sipped on its own.