Mead is not a popular beverage. A widely held stigma is that these wines, made using the ancient practice of fermenting honey and water, are unserious, cloyingly sweet and one-dimensional. Only a handful of Bay Area meaderies exist, and an unorthodox mead tasting bar at San Francisco’s Ferry Building closed shortly after opening in 2020.
The California wine industry is particularly dismissive of mead, said Gordon Hull, who’s made honey wine for nearly 30 years under his brand Heidrun Meadery.
Mead’s reputation is “deserved,” he said, noting “there’s so much bad mead out there.” But Hull believes his meads, made as sparkling wines instead of the traditional still, deserve the same respect as California’s top bubbles, and even many Champagnes. Honey, he argues, has just as much terroir as grapes. “Most mead I see today has somehow been adulterated with flavorings to make it more appealing,” Hull said. “That’s counter to our philosophy. If you just let the honey show itself, you end up with this beautiful and pleasant end product.”…