Mead is the world’s oldest known form of alcoholic beverage. Commonly known as honeywine, it is made using three raw natural ingredients: honey, water, and yeast. Mead can be highly aromatic and complex and, much like grape-wine, is vintage and varietal specific. 

Discovered roughly 10,000 years ago (some historians even say 40,000 years ago) mead has deep historical roots in many ancient civilizations. In ancient Greece for example, Hippocrates used mead as a tonic, while in Northern Europe, the Vikings believed that honey and mead were a gift from the heavens (Valhalla) and possessed magical properties. In Celtic traditions, a wedding wasn’t complete without a mead toast to the young couple, wishing them a sweet marriage. It’s even said that the word “honeymoon” comes from a tradition where the newly married couple was gifted enough mead to drink each night for the first month or full lunar cycle (moon) to promote health, fertility, and success. 

Rosewood Meads are crafted from natural ingredients, using wildflower honey. Sometimes local fruit or grape juice is also used to make unique melomels, pyments and cysers (apple juice fermented with honey). Honey is a complex natural substance and when fermented, creates a unique flavor due to combination of sugars, enzymes, proteins, organic compounds and trace minerals. Combined with a wide range of potential nectar sources, each honey has distinct flavour and aromas. When cool-fermented, it creates sensational meads with incredible depth and character.

Innovation, while honouring tradition, is at the heart of Rosewood’s mead making process. We produce meads that reflect their vintage and nectar sources while being aromatic, balanced and complex. Rosewood Meads range from dry to lusciously sweet, some with fruit or grapes, and some with French oak barrel influence. 

Food & Drink Pairings

Meads are interesting and powerful mixers in cocktails, adding a new spin to classic cocktails or can be an important component of new creations. With tremendous aging potential, you can enjoy many of the meads now or cellar them for years, some even decades, to come. 

Dry Mead
Dry meads, such as Rosewood’s Harvest Gold, is best served chilled alongside various cheeses, savoury or spicy dishes, and savoury-desserts.

Sweet Mead
The sweeter meads can be enjoyed chilled as a digestif or aperitif with cheese plates or sweet desserts.

Types of Mead

Mead (Hydromiel) 
An alcoholic beverage crafted by fermenting honey and water using yeast. Grapes, fruit, spices or oak are often used to add character or complexity. 
Rosewood Examples – Harvest Gold, Mead Royale, Grande Reserve Ambrosia

Melomel – mead that integrates fruit juice.
Local Niagara sour cherry juice is used for Rosewood’s Mon Cherie. At this time, Mon Cherie is sold out at the winery, but we are working on a new batch soon. Stay tuned by signing up to our newsletter for release details.

Pyment – mead fermented with grape juice.
Rosewood Example – Mead Blanc, VSOP

Cyser – mead made with apple cider / juice and honey.
Rosewood Examples – Legacy Cyser, Pomme D’Or

Metheglin – mead made with spices and honey.
Rosewood Example – Spiced Mead

Bochet – mead made with caramelized / burnt honey.
Rosewood Examples – Old Smokey, Pomme D’Or