Mead indeed.

Honestly, I cannot even think the word mead without my head being filled with visions of warty peasants in dimly lit, smokey taverns - full of wenches and wolfhounds - rambunctiously sloshing around mead-filled pewter tankards. Mead, sometimes referred to as 'nectar of the Gods', is made from fermented honey and is perhaps the oldest alcoholic drink known to man.  (I daresay Saint Bede drank mead.)
Traditional mead, simply honey, water and yeast, can be dry, sweet, still or sparkling.  With the addition of fruits, grains, herbs and spices mead is known by some other names.  For example; Braggot is made from honey and malt; Cyser is made from honey and apple juice; Pyment is made from honey and grapes and, germane to this post, Metheglin is made from honey, herbs and spices.  (Shakespeare refers to metheglin, along with malmsey, in Love's Labour's Lost.)
All the meads I have ever tried have been quite wine-like and have been packaged in wine-like bottles.  Nectar Creek, a mead produced in Corvallis, Oregon, is packaged in beer-like bottles which had me wondering if the contents would be more beer-like.  (Now, where did I put my pewter tankard?)  Chicory and Sting were two very different meads - the first a traditional mead, the second a metheglin, I suppose. They drank more wine-like, but with beer-like alcohol (ABVs of 5% and 6.2% respectively).  The Chicory was extremely honey-ish on the nose, with a little floral component mixed in, and felt like it had a bit more mouthfeel than the other. The decidedly-ginger-ale-reminiscent Sting had subtle, earthy undertones of honey.  Both meads were ever so slightly effervescent, and both were lacking in acid (for my taste).  I couldn't drink a lot of this stuff.  But, (not unlike the fad for the so-called, in the USA, hard ciders), mead is very trendy right now, so I reckon a fair amount of folks are drinking it: the creed of mead.

A butt of Malmsey.

Week 9.  Portugal.  Number of wines, 23.  I'm not only tasting the wines of the mainland tonight, but also wines from the island of Madeira.
The evening started off with two very recognisable wines from producers Mateus and Lancers who happen to make more wine each year than all the other wine producers of Portugal combined. Next, a tour of white and red table wines revealed passable tipples that were quite fruity with low alcohol levels.
Unlike George Plantagenet, the 1st Duke of Clarence, who is said to have drowned in a butt (477.3 litres) of Malmsey, I was in no danger from the flight of Madeiras - with just a once ounce pour of each.  Considering how pleasant the 'aged 10 years' Malmsey proved to be, I must say that I can almost see the merit in choosing this way to meet ones (wine)maker, perhaps.
However, I really rather enjoyed the flight of Vinho do Porto (or just plain port to the English speaking world), especially a Porto Rocha, 2003, Vintage offering.  At 20% alcohol by volume one couldn't consume a lot of these ports, unlike the 9% alcohol by volume Vinho Verdes poured earlier in the evening.  But the wines of Oporto left me in no doubt as to why the English made such an effort, when faced with the scarcity of French wine imports into England, to go in search of wines elsewhere - and found the wines of the Douro. Clever lads!
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