Poll: What would you most like to see from commercial meaderies?

[kudapucat]

Over here it's all about instant gratification. The average life of a bottle from sale to opening is less than 3 hours!
Many of our bottle shops sell (at suitably inflated prices) older vintages for that reason.
As for mead, we can only buy Maxwell's Swill... :-(

I entered a dry peach mel that was 1.5 years old and rather nice, into pre-evaluation for the local wine guild competition.
It was judged to be pretty good, bronze/silver, except, that I should be prepared that most judges expect mead is a sweet brew, so lacking sweetness may lose it points.

Grrr.

 

[YogiBearMead726]

I entered a dry peach mel that was 1.5 years old and rather nice, into pre-evaluation for the local wine guild competition.
It was judged to be pretty good, bronze/silver, except, that I should be prepared that most judges expect mead is a sweet brew, so lacking sweetness may lose it points.

Grrr.

This is exactly why I make mead...to change people's perception of what mead "should taste like". It isn't wine, and deserves to be judged on its own merits. Have you gotten any score cards back yet?

 

[kudapucat]

it was just pre-evaluation, the comp is in November

 

[mrperq]

I noticed that a lot of 'meads' sold around are actually white wine flavoured with honey.

Mead is quit hard to find around here. I only found some in a
apiary supply grossery i visited when honey-hunting. It was
actually quit tasty, but no honey-aroma at all. Acutally I dont
think it tatsted that much different from a montbazillac, to the
point I believe was simply grape wine, possibly slightly
backsweetened with honey.

I dont really know yet what I'm looking for in a mead, but its
most definately not grape wine. I think most of what I really
want depends on occasion, weather and mood, simular to wine and
beer.

 

[GDP]

Mead is quit hard to find around here. I only found some in a
apiary supply grossery i visited when honey-hunting. It was
actually quit tasty, but no honey-aroma at all. Acutally I dont
think it tatsted that much different from a montbazillac, to the
point I believe was simply grape wine, possibly slightly
backsweetened with honey.

I dont really know yet what I'm looking for in a mead, but its
most definately not grape wine. I think most of what I really
want depends on occasion, weather and mood, simular to wine and
beer.

I was in the same boat as you, in trying to find that right mead but not knowing what it is. I believe I finally found my brand/styles that I like and its just right for me. Not too sweet and not wine-like. I had to go through about 4-5 other different brands and about 8 different styles/flavors of mead to find it.