Superstition Meadery Marion Mead Review

I’m kicking off Mead Review Monday 2016 with the Marion Mead from Superstition Meadery. My New Year’s resolution is to keep a regular schedule of Monday reviews among lots of other great content for you all. If I start slipping, I give you permission to holler at me!

So onto the review…

Before getting this mead, I had never heard of the Marionberry. It happens to be a breed of blackberry first cultivated in 1956. The Marion Mead is 85% honey wine, 5% marionberry, 5% raspberry, and 5% blueberry. This mixture results in a deep, dark reddish purple color beautifully visible through the clear glass bottle. It looks just as rich and decadent when poured into a glass.

The aroma is incredibly juicy. The berries dance in the nostrils along with musty earthy notes. The aroma is deep and dark like the appearance.

The flavors are big and bold. Significant blackberry jam flavors along with black current lead the way.  bit of honey sweetness comes through but then gives up to tannic tartness along with cranberry flavors (well, maybe just the cranberry tartness). It finishes dry with the fruit peel tannins lingering on the back of the tongue. It drinks much more tart dry than expected, which is nice. The acidity balances the sweetness in this complex mead. It comes in at 13.5% ABV, but the alcohol is barely noticeable among the bright berry flavors. 

I think the clear bottle is great for this mead. It lets the deep berry color speak for itself. I fell like the bright color of the label actually ends up detracting from the color of the mead itself. It would be nicer if the label was a neutral color with accents of the berry color to accentuate the color of the mead. Also There isn’t much consistency between the front label and the back.

One thing I do like that Superstition Meadery does with their labels is the hand written batch numbers. This little detail is similar to numbering fine art prints – a nod to the craft of the libation.

I had the mead with summer berry dark chocolate.  A great combination. Overall it’s a very intriguing mead with marvelously rich flavors.