Glad to be part of the revived forum!

[Henny Penny]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?

[PDT]

I just gave you your first karma point! Welcome.

My wife is registered, but hasn't been feeling well, so she hasn't logged on yet. You're part of a growing woman contingent here!

[sirgonzo420]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?


Welcome aboard!

Not wine per se, but the wife and I quite enjoy mead.

;D

She'll probably join sometime after Easter Sunday.

[Henny Penny]

I just gave you your first karma point! Welcome.

My wife is registered, but hasn't been feeling well, so she hasn't logged on yet. You're part of a growing woman contingent here!


Thanks!

[Henny Penny]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?


Welcome aboard!

Not wine per se, but the wife and I quite enjoy mead.

;D

She'll probably join sometime after Easter Sunday.


I like mead too, but I know very little about it and want to know more.

[sunshine05]

Welcome! I drink wine:). I actually joined a wine club and was sampling several types but wasn't impressed with most so now I stick with ones that I like.

[Gypsybiker45]

I for one am very glad to be here, this makes the GIM demise seem more like a brief internet outage than a total ending. This is indeed the real GIM .

[Libertytree]

Welcome Henny,

Good to see you're feelin' better. I have a decent knowledge of wines, been in the biz for 30 yrs or so. In a prior life I sold wines to and conducted wine tastings for the Nashville aristocracy(snobs) and got to drink all the best there was.

I've been away from that part of the biz for 10 yrs but I still enjoy a bottle now and then.

[vicatoa]

Hi, just found this site from the Gim2 site. My wife and I drink alot of local Michigan and Ontario wines, good stuff. I am especially fond of Ice Wine.

[Libertytree]

Hi, just found this site from the Gim2 site. My wife and I drink alot of local Michigan and Ontario wines, good stuff. I am especially fond of Ice Wine.


I love a good Eiswein. Ya might want to try some Moscato d'Asti, it's similar but different. Also like a good sautern, got to try a 59 and a 62 once, it was liquid gold.

[goldmonkey]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?


Do you recognize my avatar?

[Henny Penny]

Welcome aboard!

Not wine per se, but the wife and I quite enjoy mead.

;D

She'll probably join sometime after Easter Sunday.


I tasted mead I purchased at a liquor store, 10 years ago. Later, an acquaintace mentioned she and her husband make mead. I think the world of mead is very large, but have not researched it. Do you know how to make it? What makers of mead or online sources do you recommend?

[AlterEgo]

Welcome, babe! Just noticed you posted here last night... must have been when I was cooking dinner! I don't remember being away from the keyboard long enough any other time... ;D

Maybe I'll tear myself away from this thing later today long enough for you to see this... 8)


Cheapskate buy her her own computer so we can enjoy both of ya at the same time.

[Henny Penny]

Welcome! I drink wine:). I actually joined a wine club and was sampling several types but wasn't impressed with most so now I stick with ones that I like.


I was in an informal wine group, then was leader of a group for a short while, but have neglected it lately, but not from disinterest in wine. I have learned some and have much more to learn. Did you take/keep any notes on what you were impressed with? What wines do you like that you stick with?

[Libertytree]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?


Do you recognize my avatar?


Drank alot of that stuff...Opus One.

[Henny Penny]

Welcome Henny,

Good to see you're feelin' better. I have a decent knowledge of wines, been in the biz for 30 yrs or so. In a prior life I sold wines to and conducted wine tastings for the Nashville aristocracy(snobs) and got to drink all the best there was.

I've been away from that part of the biz for 10 yrs but I still enjoy a bottle now and then.


I am impressed.--truly. I worked at three different wine stores, and eventually burned out on the retail aspect. I still love the great world of wine. I admire your tenacity and courage! I bet you have some stories. Have you written down any? What are some of your favorite passions concerning wine?

[Henny Penny]

Hi, just found this site from the Gim2 site. My wife and I drink alot of local Michigan and Ontario wines, good stuff. I am especially fond of Ice Wine.


Cool. I have not had any wines from MI or Ontario, and would like to. I like the variety in wines from various states, regions, and countries.
Are you referring to the Americanized version of ice wine, or German eis wine, or both? I have tasted both, and love them. I am crazy about high quality sweet wines.

[Henny Penny]

Hi, just found this site from the Gim2 site. My wife and I drink alot of local Michigan and Ontario wines, good stuff. I am especially fond of Ice Wine.


I love a good Eiswein. Ya might want to try some Moscato d'Asti, it's similar but different. Also like a good sautern, got to try a 59 and a 62 once, it was liquid gold.


I am envious! I have had only two or three sauterns, and they are amazing!
INDEED liquid gold.

[StackerKen]

We may need a wine thread or sub forum :)

My wife and i like wine sometimes

have any of you tried "Two Buck Chuck" ?


http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h55/baytraderken/chuck.jpg

[Henny Penny]

Welcome, babe! Just noticed you posted here last night... must have been when I was cooking dinner! I don't remember being away from the keyboard long enough any other time... ;D

Maybe I'll tear myself away from this thing later today long enough for you to see this... 8)


Cheapskate buy her her own computer so we can enjoy both of ya at the same time.



My lap top is currently under repair. Thank you for the concern.

[Henny Penny]

We may need a wine thread of sub forum :)

My wife and i like wine sometimes

have any of you tried "Two Buck Chuck" ?


http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h55/baytraderken/chuck.jpg


Yes I have. It is okay for the price.

[Ponce]

Only drink milk and water.....but.....when I see you I'll dring half a glass of wine with you.........be sure that it is a 1942 Chatou Brillian that would kiss your taste buds with just a touch of Chate Ocor which will leave a taste in your mouth till the next drink.

Now then, WHAT THE HELL DID I SAY??? sounds real good but illegal hahahhaah.

[Henny Penny]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?


Do you recognize my avatar?


Drank alot of that stuff...Opus One.


You answered before I could. Yes I recognize the Opus One logo. I tasted it one time at a wine tasting. It was good wine. That was a while ago.

[Libertytree]

Welcome Henny,

Good to see you're feelin' better. I have a decent knowledge of wines, been in the biz for 30 yrs or so. In a prior life I sold wines to and conducted wine tastings for the Nashville aristocracy(snobs) and got to drink all the best there was.

I've been away from that part of the biz for 10 yrs but I still enjoy a bottle now and then.


I am impressed.--truly. I worked at three different wine stores, and eventually burned out on the retail aspect. I still love the great world of wine. I admire your tenacity and courage! I bet you have some stories. Have you written down any? What are some of your favorite passions concerning wine?


I'll be honest HP, I actually underplayed my former life, I was in fact a sommelier to the country music echlon and the snobs there. No great feat.

My wine passions are killer Cabs and intense Zins but I'll gladly deviate and drink Sauts, icevines, very full and buttery/oaky chards and ALOT of it depends on what I'm having for a meal, one size doesn't fit all.

[mick silver]

i am glad we could beam you over from the nwo before it was to late

[I am me, I am free]

WOOHOO!!! THREE smite cherries in a single thread! TRIPLE SCORE!!!

[sirgonzo420]

Welcome aboard!

Not wine per se, but the wife and I quite enjoy mead.

;D

She'll probably join sometime after Easter Sunday.


I tasted mead I purchased at a liquor store, 10 years ago. Later, an acquaintace mentioned she and her husband make mead. I think the world of mead is very large, but have not researched it. Do you know how to make it? What makers of mead or online sources do you recommend?


I drank commercial mead, but I started making my own and I'm pretty sure my home-mead is better. ;D

As soon as I get around to it, I'm gonna post a "mead thread".

One of the best sites/forums about mead is gotmead.com

There are probably more people who make mead than buy it commercially... commercially, it seems to be quite a small market.

[Henny Penny]

i am glad we could beam you over from the nwo before it was to late


I am too--it was a close call.

[goldmonkey]

Hello
I'm glad to be a part of the revived forum. Are there any wine drinkers (oenephiles) here?


Do you recognize my avatar?


Drank alot of that stuff...Opus One.


+1

[DMac]

I like wine :)

I recently started using one of these for my less expensive bottles, it is awesome!

http://www.vinturi.com/

[Celtic Rogue]

The History and Tradition of Mead
Mead is a honey-based fermented beverage that has been produced and enjoyed since before the dawn of recorded history. Because of its antiquity, mead has acquired an almost magical reputation in our mythologies. For example, the term "honeymoon" is intertwined with the custom of drinking honey-based mead for a month (moon) after the wedding; this practice was said to ensure baby boys. Mead making was once the province of a select, trained guild. Now, it is open to all who have the patience and skill. You are continuing this long and honored tradition. Welcome aboard and enjoy.

The Types of Mead
Mead is classified not by the kind of honey that it is made of, but by what else may have been added to it for flavoring.
Traditional mead is made with only honey, water, and yeast, plus perhaps a small amount of acid (to balance the sweetness).
Metheglin is mead made with added herbs or spices, such as cloves or cinnamon.
Melomel is mead made with the addition of fruit or fruit juice to traditional mead. Melomel may also contain spices, as metheglin does.
Cyser is a melomel made with apples or apple juice.
Pyment is a melomel made with grapes or grape juice.
Hippocras is a spiced pyment.
Sack is a name (or an adjective) for stronger meads made with more honey than usual.
Depending on the initial amount of honey, and how attenuative (effective at fermenting sugars) the yeast is, the final mead may be dry or sweet. Sack mead is usually sweet.

What Kinds of Honey?
There are many kinds of honey, based on which flowers the bees collected the nectar from. Bees aren't loyal to any particular flower, so any characteri- zation of honey as being from a particular source (for example, "blackberry honey") can vary from absolutely true to a rough generality, depending on what flowers the bees can find and how interesting they find them. Honeys range in taste and color from the light clover through alfalfa to stronger tasting (and darker) such as buckwheat. There are many unusual honeys to be found where there are unusual local flowers. Which honey you will use depends both on which you like the taste of, and what type of mead you are trying to make. Stronger flavors go well in metheglins and heavier or sweet meads, while the milder honeys make a good base for melomels or dry traditional meads.
You can buy honey in bulk from roadside stands or health food stores. You may be lucky enough to live near an apiary and be able to buy right from the beekeeper. Look in the phone book for honey, health food, or beekeepers. Sometimes, exterminators will remove hives, give the bees to beekeepers, and sell the honey. University agriculture departments occasionally sell honey. Be inventive. If all else fails, you may have to buy it from the grocery store.

The honey will be either raw or processed in some way. Raw honey has bits of wax, bee parts, dust, pollen, microorganisms, and the like in it. You have the most control in how you process raw honey, but you also have the most to do. Honey may be filtered, or blended, or even heat pasturized to make it clearer and less likely to crystallize. The more processed it is, the milder it is likely to be and the less character it will give to your mead. Processing also evaporates some of the honey's aroma. Commercial, grocery store honey is the most processed and is generally not a good choice for meadmaking.

Crystallized honey is just fine for mead. In fact, it has two points in its favor: First, it generally indicates less processing, since one of the reasons for processing honey is to keep it from crystallizing. Second, it may be cheaper because it's less appealing to the average consumer. To re- liquefy crystallized honey so you can pour it, just heat it gently.

Adding Acid
Acid is added to the "must" (the honey water mixture you're going to ferment) both to adjust the ph and to balance the sweet flavor of the honey. Yeast love an acidic environment. Many other micro-organisms don't. The acid you add protects the must until the alcohol level creates a hostile environment for the competition.
Acid can be added in many forms. Winemaking suppliers sell acid blends, powder or liquid. Acid is measured in "as tartaric", or how acidic the must is compared to pure tartaric acid. For example, if the must is 0.5 percent acid as tartaric, it is as acidic as if 0.5 percent of the must were pure tartaric acid. Inexpensive test kits will let you measure the acidity so that you can adjust it. Acid blends are a combination of tartaric, citric, and malic acids. You may be able to get the individual acids used in blends. Each contributes a slightly different taste in addition to acidity. The natural acid in fruits and berries will also acidify the must, for which reason melomels often need no additional acid.

How to Prepare the Must
The honey/water before fermenting is called must. You will want to add the honey to hot water in a large pot, but make sure the pot is not on the heat while doing this because the honey will fall to the bottom and caramelize (or stir vigorously if you leave it on the heat). Stainless steel or enameled kettles are preferred.
Some mead recipes recommend only heating the must enough to pasteurize it. This is because boiling mead will drive off some of the delicate honey flavors. Refer to the recipes from the mead-lovers digest or the other references (below).

If scum rises while heating or boiling the must, skim it off. It consists of wax, bee parts, pollen, etc., which don't help the flavor of the mead.

An alternative preparation method involves the use of "Campden tablets" or "sulfiting" to sterilize the must. If you're a winemaker, you'll recognize this method. With the use of Campden tablets, it is not necessary to heat/ boil the must at all first, although some mead-makers do so anyway for the sake of clarity of the final mead. If you use Campden tablets, follow a recipe or instructions for quantity, preparation, delay times, etc. Heating is probably easier than sulfiting for the beginning mead-maker.

Yeasts
Mead is more a wine than beer, with a final alcohol level anywhere between 10 and 18 percent. Wine yeasts, which have a higher alcohol tolerance, may ferment slower at first (although some are remarkably fast) but will ferment more completely than ale or lager yeast. They are also less likely to produce "off" tastes which take a long time to age out after the mead is finished. A partial list of some of the popular yeasts are: Champagne (multiple strains), Epernay, Flor Sherry, Steinberg, Prise De Mousse, Tokay, and various proprietary strains which are derived from these
This list is by no means exhaustive. Each yeast will impart its own unique characteristic to the mead. Champagne ferments out very dry and has a high alcohol tolerance. Epernay has a fruity bouquet. Flor Sherry has a high alcohol tolerance and contributes a flavor that goes better with sack meads. Prise de Mousse is particularly neutral and fast-fermenting. Some yeasts will produce noticeable levels of phenols (the throat-burning part of cough medicine), which age out eventually in bottle conditioning but are an un- necessary complication since there are yeasts that don't produce them.

Yeast Nutrient
Honey by itself is low in some of the nutrients that yeast need to reproduce and quickly ferment out the mead must. Fermentation times can be measured in months as the yeast slowly trickles along. This is a disadvantage because as long as the fermenting mead remains sweet and low in alcohol, it is inviting to contaminating bacteria. Mead makers can add a nutrient to help the yeast, and normally should do so if the only fermentable ingredient is honey. Fruit, particularly grapes, will contribute needed ingredients; thus melomels have lesser or no requirement for nutrients. Nutrients are normally added when the must is prepared.
There are several kinds of nutrients. Most winemaking shops will sell various salts designed for grape musts. While this is helpful for mead, too much can leave an astringent metallic flavor that will take months or years in the bottle to age out. Yeast extract, pulverized yeast, is also available. Dead yeast are exploded ultrasonically or in a centrifuge, and sold as a powder. Yeast extract will not leave the same metallic flavors as nutrients, but may be more difficult to find. It is not possible to make your own yeast extract at home.

Fermentation
Mead will take longer than beer to ferment. Fermentation times can be measured in months, so get another carboy. Mead likes to ferment a little warmer than beer (70F - 80F), but should be stored in a cool place to bottle condition. You will have to rack mead (transfer it to a separate vessel, leaving behind the sediment) while it is fermenting. If you make any kind of mead beside traditional, you will have to rack about a week after starting to remove the bits of fruit and spices that settle out. Rack periodically after that to get the mead off the dead yeast and other matter that settles out--every 3-6 weeks depending on the rate of fermentation and settling. This improves the flavor and clarifies the mead.
Initial fermentation of melomels made with fruit (not just juice) is easiest in a food-grade plastic pail so that you can strain out the fruit before racking. Except for this, glass carboys with fermentation locks are the best fermentation vessels.

Bottling
First, you must make sure the mead has stopped fermenting. Mead is such a slow fermenter that it may appear completely done, yet continue to ferment after bottling. This can turn a still mead into a sparkling one; it can even produce enough pressure to cause the bottles to explode. Exploding bottles-- "glass grenades"--aren't funny. They're unpredictable and very dangerous.
To be sure the mead is done fermenting, take hydrometer readings spanning a week or more and be sure the readings are not still falling. Dry meads will also finish at a gravity below 1.000. As a mead finishes, it will "fall clear"--the initial cloudiness will settle out. Be careful, though, because being clear is not enough.

Choose appropriate bottles for the type of mead. Sparkling mead (carbonated, like champagne) will require a sturdy bottle, either sparkling wine (which are thick enough to take the higher carbonation) or returnable beer bottles. Beer bottles should be crown-capped. Sparkling wine bottles can be corked if you use champagne corks and wire them down. American sparkling-wine bottles can be crown-capped just as beer bottles can. European sparkling-wine bottles cannot be reliably crown-capped--they have a crown-cap lip, but it's the wrong size for standard caps.

Still meads (uncarbonated, like normal wines) may be bottled in regular wine bottles with standard corks, or in crown-capped bottles as above. Since pressure isn't an issue, almost any bottle with an airtight closure can be made to work. Bear in mind, though, that the appearance of your bottles is part of the first impression when you serve your mead.

Mead that has finished fermentation and is then bottled will be "still" (flat). Sparkling mead is "primed" by adding a small amount of sugar at bottling time to produce a short renewed fermentation so that it is carbon- ated. For predictable results (again, to avoid "glass grenades"), you should first let the mead finish fermenting in the carboy, then add just the amount of sugar needed to carbonate it. Bottling a mead before it finished ferment- ing (in hopes of capturing just the right amount of carbonation in the bottle) can lead to under- or over-carbonation, and even in the best case won't give the mead a chance to finish clearing before bottling. A normal amount of priming sugar is about 4 ounces by weight for five gallons.

Store the bottles in a cool dark place. Mead is not as sensitive as beer to light (unless you have hops in it), but should not be left in bright light.


Wassail!
While reading the mead-lovers digest you will occasionally see the word "Wassail". It's a toast, an expression of good will, much as a beer drinker might offer "Prosit" or "Cheers". The word derives from Old Norse through Middle English, and means "be healthy". The dictionary lists two pronun- ciations (wahs'ul, wah-sale').

Legality
In the USA, mead is classified as a wine. A brief, informal (not legal advice!) synopsis: Federal regulations allow an adult to make up to 100 gallons a year, or 200 gallons per year per household of two or more adults, for personal or family use, with no tax or license required. It may not be sold. Concentration (including but not limited to distilla- tion) is prohibited. State and local laws may impose additional restric- tions, so check first. The usual situation is that home mead-making is allowed in any locality where commercial wine can be sold. Repeat: this is NOT legal advice.

[Henny Penny]

[quote=Libertytree ]
[quote=Henny Penny ]

A sommelier for the snobs--I bet you DO have stories.
I also love the high quality Cab Sauvs and Zins. Memorable wines: De Loach Zin, Renwood Zin., and some expensive reds from Italy. Also, fine whites from Germany and Alsace.