Mead or hony fortified wine?

[Summersolstice]

I stopped by a vendor-specific wine making forum today just to check on any interesting recent posts and found a post in the mead making section regarding pyments. Apparently someone bought a mist-style kit, fortified it with 6 pounds of honey (effectively doubling the alcohol content in the 6-gallon batch) and is calling it a pyment. I composed a quick reply questioning the use of the term "mead" in describing the finished product. My question was, how little honey can one add to a wine (kit or otherwise) before it's no longer a mead and simply a honey fortified wine. What do you think?

 

[pain]

By definition, a mead has honey as the primary source of sugar for the yeast. So adding honey to a wine would not make it a mead unless the honey was the major part of the fermentable (as opposed to the sugar).

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Summersolstice,

If more than 50% of the fermentable sugars are from Honey it's a Pyment.

If More than 50% fermentable sugars are from Grapes ~ the addition of Honey would likely be considered a form of chaptalization (adding sugar). While chaptalization is legal in most European countries, and a practice that has been around a good number of years, whether it would still be considered wine would probably rest with local laws governing what can be marketed as wine. Homebrewers would likely consider it wine.

Fortified wine is described as having Alcohol added to the wine ~ as opposed to merely starting with a high gravity to achieve a high Alcohol Content. And here we delve into semantics. Since no "alcohol" has been added to the wine (only sugars) can it still be considered a Fortified Wine? Tricky. The common consensus seems to be that fortification is a process to raise the alcohol level beyond the abilities of the yeast. Since the addition of honey would only raise the Gravity to the ability of the yeast, it would not be considered fortified by the accepted definition.

Hope that Helps.

Cheers,
Wrathwilde

 

[Summersolstice]

Good point Wrathwilde. It is indeed a matter of semantics and I do understand the difference between fortifying and chaptalization, having used both methods during the production of Port-style wines. In this case the mist-style kit was chaptalized with 6 pounds of honey in a 6-gallon batch and doubled the alcohol content. I guess the consensus, in this case, is that the finished product may or may not be a mead, depending upon exactly where the fermentables came from. It appears there was an equal amount of both honey and other fermentables so I suppose a case could be made either way and the end product could very well be technically classified as a pyment, though I'd be hard pressed to consider it as such with only 6 pounds of honey in a six-gallon batch, regardless of the 12% alcohol content.

 

[WRATHWILDE]

In a five gallon batch 1 pound of honey is roughly equal to 1% alcohol, to achieve 6% in a six gallon batch would require about 7.2 pounds of honey, so my guess is that the Wine contributed more sugars than the honey in this case.

Cheers,
Wrathwilde

 

[Medsen Fey]

I may be way off base, but to me, the percentage of honey that goes in is less important than the character of what comes out. If the final product has a distinctive honey character along with the wine qualities then it is a pyment to me even if the percentage of fermentables is significantly lower than 50%. I look at it the same way for braggots and the attempts to draw a somewhat-artificial line between what is a beer and what is a braggot.

Just from where I stand, I would like to see mead continue to grow in popularity, and I think using an inclusive, "big-tent" definition of mead may be better.

Medsen

 

[wayneb]

Medsen,

That's a hard call to make, since many melomels that I've tasted (and some that I've made) have 80% or more of their fermentables from honey, but the fruit flavors clearly dominate (especially if they finish dry). How does one define "distinctive" honey character in a dry red-fruit melomel?

BTW, I like the big tent idea and would be perfectly happy calling anything that has a "significant" fraction of its fermentables from honey a mead or mead-derivative product. :icon_thumleft:

 

[Medsen Fey]

Yeah, I've got some fruit bombs that overwhelm any trace of the honey aging away even as I type this (and they taste good too, so I've got plans to make some more :toothy10: ). They might be more accurately described as fruit wines, but I made them and I'm calling them meads.

So if I make something with the majority of the fermentables being honey, it's a mead regardless of the honey presence. If I make something with a little honey in it, but the character comes through, I'm calling that a mead too.

If the mead police come and want to use their style guidelines to take my mead away, they'll have to pry my mead from my cold blue lips. :tongue1:

Medsen of the Big Tent

 

[pain]

*Thats* the spirit!!! LOL.... :cheers:

 

[Oskaar]

Basically a pyment can be dry, semi-sweet, sweet or dessert. The honey character may range from subtle to intense and may or not display varietal character. It should however present with varietal character or nuances if the honey varietal is listed specifically in the ingredients. The grape character may be subtle or intense depending on varietal and/or blends thereof. If the varietal is called out in the ingredient list there should be some indication/character imparted to the pyment from that specific grape varietal. There may also be slight or pronounced diacetyl character from the wine undergoing malolactic fermentation. In reds it would be less pronounced than in a Chardonnay pyment for example. Oak character may also present and should be indicative of the oak used (i.e. American, Eastern European or French). Astringency, acid and phenolics should be in balance with the grape varietal and amount of honey used. Color will generally trend toward the type of grape used so it's important to be mindful of the type of honey you're going to use. So if you're making a dry Chenin Blanc pyment, using Avocado, Buckwheat or another dark honey is probably not the best idea, whereas the color contribution of the honey will not be as easy to discern in a red wine pyment (Petit Sirah, Zinfandel or Aglianico, etc.) but still should be paired to maximize the contribution and blending of complimentary flavors and aromas.

There is no percentage that dictates whether a wine, pyment or honey fortified wine in the current style guidlines, however, the grape and honey should be complimentary in aroma, flavor and balance. Much like a braggot a strong honey may dominate in a lighter beer style, while the grain may dominate in a darker beer style, the same can be said of a pyment. My rule of thumb is that if the grape must has been fermented to completion and the honey is added and a second fermentation is made, you have a honey fortified wine. If the honey is added to the grape must (skins, stems, seeds, pulp and juice) and fermented you have a pyment (or if you use concentrate from a kit, etc) If you ferment a mead and add grape juice in secondary, that's still a pyment as the main fermentable was the honey in primary. If you add finished wine to a finished mead you have a mead with wine added. You can go many ways with this and frankly arguments can be made in any direction, and there are many many ways to do this with no one way being right. Bottom line is that as long as you have good representation and support of flavors, varietal nuances and characters pyment is a good moniker in my book.

Cheers,

Oskaar