Martin's Cherry Melomel - Kinda Tasty!

My lady brought over a bottle of something I hadn't seen before the other day - Martin's Cherry Melomel.  While the spellchecker disagrees that this is indeed a real word, a Melomel refers to a Mead (i.e. Honey wine) that has had added fruit or fruit juice - in this case, cherries.  Much like regular mead wherein the residual sweetness can vary greatly, the addition of fruit has a noticeable effect on both the taste, the body, the sweetness (or lack thereof) and the overall alcohol content of the finalized wine product.

Honey wine and Cherry wine combine to form something greater than the sum of it's parts!

With respect to Martin's product we have here,  the finalized product is rather sweet due to the residual sugars but at the same time, vaguely dry; probably due to the feeling of the tannins that the cherries provide.  Like red and darker skin grapes, cherries contain tannins which add to the "drying" or "puckering" effect you can get from such wines.  There's some evidence that tannins may also play a beneficial role in health as well, but such a discussion is beyond the purview of this post :)  There's plenty of information available about the effect of tannins on health, especially with respect to tea, and seeing as how tea and wine are two of the best beverages we have going, a little reading might be just what the doctor ordered.

The cherry flavor itself is nicely defined, and the color of the wine itself is a beautiful transparent red.. similar to a yellowish "cherry red" as you might expect.  This wine would be a good wine for a summer's day picnic - it's sweet enough to treat the palate kindly, but the bite from the cherry tannins will provide good contrast with sandwiches and such.  This is another good wine that would go over well at a party with friends, or people who aren't typical wine drinkers.  The lady wanted me to add that it would be good with some other fruits added into it - I would suggest some kinds of melon or apple, aim for the sweeter side of things.

Meads and melomels can have wide variations in their alcoholic content, and Martin's Cherry Melomel clocks in at 11% alcohol by volume, towards the lower end of the scale for this sort of thing - but still enough to pack a reasonable kick if you wish to drink a couple of glasses.

A pleasant tipple for a party with friends or perhaps a picnic with somebody special!

With respect to the overall taste - well, this is a pretty straight forward product, nothing too fancy.  The cherry flavor predominates and there really is only a hint of the mead honey flavor in the background.  If you like cherries, this should be on your list of must-try wines.  If you're searching for a more traditional mead?  You might wish to avoid melomels altogether, or perhaps try a different one.  The cherry taste is the major note you can detect here, with the honey taste and sweetness more prevalent on the nose.  Truth be told, if you didn't know that melomel was honey based, you wouldn't be able to guess it by drinking this :)

It's been a while since it was purchased, but we believe this was nabbed at the Hudson Valley Wine & Food festival - and the price was around $8-$12.  If you like mead and/or melomel, it's worth picking up for a taste.  Consume it soon after purchase - it does change with time like any other wine, and might not be exactly the same as when you purchased it new.  Still tasty though :)


Cheers!