Medovina Harvest Cyser

750mL bottle, 2006 vintage, courtesy of acrdz. Thanks, Mike! Pours a light, clear, whitish-straw color; headless with decent legs. Vanilla-tinged honeyed sweetness and overripe apple notes in the aroma; a bit of mustiness and apple cider; can’t decide whether I’m really taken by the nose or put off by it; interesting, lightly sweet stuff. A touch watery in an otherwise medium-to-full mouthfeel: notes of vanilla, basic honey, and overripe apples; the vanilla-tinged honey takes center stage, with the musty apple character serving a supporting role; overall: overripe, underdeveloped honey character, and a bit watery and weakly formed. Weird stuff. Medium finish: vanilla, honey, and some warming alcohol poking through; a bit rough and watery throughout.

Still pour, very light yellow, pear juice color. Nose is strange - I probably won’t do a good job describing this - but it does resembles perfume, pears, apples and wet dog - that damp dishcloth smell. Silky smooth up front, more harsh and biting on the back, medium dryness develops on the back. Alcohol very evident... there’s a nice pear and honey sweetness late in the finish. Very different, interesting and unique, but a little perfume-heavy.

This one is dry and as all of the fruit meads of Medovina I’ve tried so far, the fruit is far from being dominant, although, I think the apple here is a much more evident than most of the other fruits where I’ve struggled to locate an obvious signal of their presence. My only qualm with this one is a slight sulfury note that eventually faded before finishing the glass.

The aroma of this mead is amazingly evocative of autumn! It smells sweetly of decomposing leaves, distant chimney smoke, apples, honey, randy little bees and alcohol. The honey characters seem to defeat the apple character ever so slightly. The body is translucent and pale yellow. It feels light, thin and easy in the mouth. It’s barely sweet and slightly acidic.

Bottled in 2005. No head (still). Body is hazy light yellow. Aroma is notes of honey, apple and apple skins, flowers, autumn leaves, alcohol, and oak. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic. Finish is lightly sweet, lightly acidic. Light to medium body, watery texture, flat carbonation, lightly astringent. Really neat autumn-like nose that combines the mead and apple extremely well (neither dominates, but both are clearly apparent). Very light and dryish in the mouth, which brings wine to mind rather than mead, but it’s balanced nicely.