The Beverage Testing Institute in Chicago this week awarded 90 points to Valley Vineyards ’ Honey Mead and has given it a “Best Buy” status.
The mead — first introduced by Warren County winery in 1971 and made every year since — was the top scoring mead of the seven honey wines submitted to the BTI for evaluation and ranked in the tasting.
To be fair, the 14 or so meads submitted to the tasting panel at BTI for review (about half apparently did not score above 80 points, and under BTI’s guidelines, their reviews were not published) represent just a drop in the honeycomb of all of the honey wines produced in the U.S. But to outscore more than a dozen peers in an independent tasting is still good news for the family that runs Valley Vineyards and the winery’s veteran winemaker, Greg Pollman.
“We’re very excited about the award,” said Joe Schuchter, Valley Vineyards’ director of sales and marketing and a third-generation member of the family that founded the winery. “The judges tasted a wide spectrum of available meads, and we’re all thrilled ours came our on top. I hope this assures our customers that with growth we will maintain and exceed their expectations of quality wines.”
These are heady times for Valley Vineyards, which won acclaim from the Ohio Department of Agriculture director each of the last two years for producing the “best red wine in Ohio” and which has announced plans to add a microdistillery and spirits to the winery’s offerings, which recently expanded to include a line of “Cellar Dweller” beers produced at the winery.