Oliver Winery - Camelot Mead

[Swobee]

Anyone try their meads? I haven't opened it yet, but bought some mead during a recent trip to the Denver area. One bottle is from the Oliver Winery of Indiana. I want to give them a grade of A++++ for their bottle, label, cork and appearance in general! Their bottle has an embossed bee on a flower on the neck. The cork has bees on flowers imprinted on it. The back label has a side facing the front with bees on flowers. Very clever and colorful labeling - I am impressed. Hopefully it will taste as good as it looks.

The mead is very light in color & crystal-clear. Now, I'm waiting for a special occasion to open it because the bottle and all is so unique, it's too pretty to just pull the cork. Thank goodness Mother's Day is coming soon!

The liquor store I stopped in had only two mead varieties on hand and I got them both. The other is Lancelot Honey Wine from Meaderie of the Rockies. Good looking and not as cool, label-wise, but can't wait to pull that cork, either:p

Our honey is usually at best a light amber to medium or even dark amber in color and I just can't get my mead as light in color as these two varieties are. My meads usually look like tea or watered-down Coke.

[indypartridge]

Anyone try their meads? I haven't opened it yet, but bought some mead during a recent trip to the Denver area. One bottle is from the Oliver Winery of Indiana. I want to give them a grade of A++++ for their bottle, label, cork and appearance in general! Their bottle has an embossed bee on a flower on the neck. The cork has bees on flowers imprinted on it. The back label has a side facing the front with bees on flowers. Very clever and colorful labeling - I am impressed. Hopefully it will taste as good as it looks.

I pass by Oliver Winery regularly. I've had their wine but didn't know they had mead. Based on your review, I'm gonna have to stop and pick up a bottle.

[nursebee]

I have never enjoyed the taste of a commercial mead relative to what I make over many years aging.

I especially hate the taste of commercial bottles, corks, labels, and artwork.

I hope you like what is under the hood.

[Swobee]

Nursebee,

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say. I was impressed by the artwork, especially. It's something I would have done for my own mead... if I had an artistic bone in my body, that is! 3

I'll let you all know how it tastes next week. Some of the mead I've bought has been mediocre at best to some very impressive. My mead varies from stuff to 'kill whatever lives in the septic tank' to, 'why didn't I make more of this batch'?

[jaglx]

Now, I'm waiting for a special occasion to open it because the bottle and all is so unique, it's too pretty to just pull the cork. Thank goodness Mother's Day is coming soon!

Happy Mothers Day! Well, how is the mead?

[knadai]

I've had it. Extremely sweet. Nauseatingly so. Even my wife, who likes sweet wine (late harvest rieslings and such) couldn't drink it.

[Swobee]

Well, ours wasn't what I would call 'sweet', semi-sweet perhaps with the perfect balance of sweetness. If you want over the top wweet wine, use Bullseye's recipe. It will make you pucker up it's so sweet! I like his, but it's too much in the sweet department for me.

Seriosuly, this was one of the best tasting meads I've had. Very light tasting, semi-sweet without nausiating sweetness, IMO. Not to disagree with knadai, but this stuff would win a prize for the semi-sweet category if I were a judge. No acidic bite to it, good leg on the glass... just plain very fine wine. We were pleased to say the least. Again, the art work was cute without being 'too much', the cork has its own art which just adds to the overall marketing appeal. In short, it is a close second only to the meads produced by Redstone in Boulder... and one heck of a lot less costly than theirs, making it a Best Buy in Mead in my 'Consumer Report' issue on meads!