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Going to Monteluce Winery in Atlanta Friday!

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mannye

mannye

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Oct 10, 2012
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A certain Mike Lorey seems to be making a lot of noise with his award winning mead in Georgia.

I'm heading up there (from Miami) on Friday to have lunch at the winery and try some of this mead! Very excited. I'm also going to search for Monks Mead in Book House tavern to give that a try as well. Probably try Monks on Saturday.

With any luck I will be able to see how a real professional meadery works!
 
westend1530 said:
I live in Atlanta and am looking to try some commercial meads. Any comment on either of these?
Click to expand...

They are both sparkling meads. I generally don't like the bitterish "bite" that carbonation gives mead, but I have to say that Monk's mead goes very well with a nice spicy chicken wing. By itself, the first sip was a little bitter, but I was enjoying it by mid glass and asked for a second. NOTE: that was the first ever dry mead I tried so my palate was "surprised" I guess would be the word. I recommend giving it a try. There's a great little pub called the Bookhouse Pub that has Monk's on tap, but call ahead since it seems to be a seasonal or "subject to availability" thing. It was the only place on the Monk's Mead website that actually had it.


http://www.monksmead.com/places.html

Monteluce Winery is absolutely gorgeous. http://www.montaluce.com/ I suggest you set aside the day (depending on where you are driving from) for the drive up and call ahead to make reservations at the restaurant. I found both the service and the food outstanding! Well worth the trip.

I really enjoyed the mead as well. The mazer who's name escapes me at the moment has won a few awards and they are well deserved. The mead is well balanced and very easy to drink. Bottle carbonated, you get those fine champagne-like bubbles.

Again, that first sip brings what for me is an unpleasant CO2 bite that I also get from cheap Spumante to the finest champagne (so it's obviously MY problem) but once past the first sip it's a very tasty semi-dry mead that I was glad I made the trip for.



The only thing that bothered me about it is since it is bottle conditioned, it has sediment at the bottom. Sediment which clearly should not be allowed to taint the mead, at least in my tasting. The first glass is great, crystal clear and clean! The last glass (it's a 750ml bottle) is muddy with the sediment and in my opinion tainted by the yeast. I can't fault him too much because I can only imagine what a pain it would be to disgorge each bottle to get that light carbonation and what it would do to the price. But I would prefer having the bottle transferred into a cold decanter and leave the sediment in the bottle like you would with a bottle conditioned beer.
 
Now see, maybe it's me being snobby, but if I was drinking a sparkling mead made by a home brewer, I'd accept a bit of sediment, but for a commercial meadery to produce a sparkler and have sediment in the bottle, is lazy and unprofessional. Even the cheapest of champagnes is clear to the bottom of the bottle.

Sumante, Prosecco, Cava, all much cheaper and equally as clear and sediment free......

Gives a poor impression IMO, of their product.

That includes the likes of us, understanding how much hassle it can be, but I'd still expect it clear.........
 
fatbloke said:
Now see, maybe it's me being snobby, but if I was drinking a sparkling mead made by a home brewer, I'd accept a bit of sediment, but for a commercial meadery to produce a sparkler and have sediment in the bottle, is lazy and unprofessional. Even the cheapest of champagnes is clear to the bottom of the bottle.

Sumante, Prosecco, Cava, all much cheaper and equally as clear and sediment free......

Gives a poor impression IMO, of their product.

That includes the likes of us, understanding how much hassle it can be, but I'd still expect it clear.........
Click to expand...

Can't argue with you there. :D
 
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