TUCKED AWAY behind a shopping center in Union County is a small, nondescript warehouse space that's guaranteed to delight even the most jaded wine enthusiast. For this is the home of Melovino, New Jersey's first (and, for now, only) meadery.





Mead, or honey wine, is thought to be the oldest of intoxicating beverages and almost certainly predates wine -- for reasons we'll get to shortly. There are references to mead in the Old English tale "Beowulf," as well as "The Canterbury Tales" and Shakespeare's plays. Who knew that mead was still being made today, let alone in New Jersey?

Melovino in Union is among the country's few producers of craft mead.

But that's the least of the surprises that await customers who plunk down $10 for a tour and tasting at Melovino's production facility, at the back of the Millburn Village Shopping Center in the Vauxhall section of Union. Where to begin?



Well, for one thing, although honey is almost pure sugar, mead can be quite dry, with a crisp finish not unlike a fine white wine. It turns out that honey is very high in natural acidity -- something you don't notice when you taste it undiluted.

The acidity, combined with a low moisture content thanks to sugar levels that can top 90 percent, is why honey is one of the few natural foods that don't spoil, explains Melovino's founder and chief mead-maker, Sergio Moutela.



Even yeast can't penetrate pure honey -- it's simply too sweet. In order to turn honey into mead, the raw product first must be diluted with water.



It turns out that water is how early honey gatherers preserved their precious commodity. The ancients discovered that a layer of rainwater protected pots of honey from "theft" by insects, including bees. As honey was removed from the pot, the water that remained was still plenty sweet for air-borne yeast to ferment the sugars into alcohol. The results apparently were quite pleasing to early man.



"It was the first buzz," quips Greg Iannarella, Melovino's assistant mead maker, leaving visitors in stitches during a recent tour of the facility. And he wasn't kidding: Because mead production requires essentially no human intervention, it likely was consumed thousands of years before wine or beer.



Classic mead is made from nothing more than honey, water and yeast. But today's mead makers are just as likely to dilute the honey with apple cider or other fruit juices, and to jazz it up with natural flavorings, such as spices and chili peppers. Moutela makes a couple of dozen varieties, including two -- called Sweet Affair Hers and Sweet Affair His -- that combine honey with the juice of wine grapes (sauvignon blanc for Hers, cabernet sauvignon for His).



For Moutela, previously a food and wine importer and avid home beer maker, mead combines the best elements of wine and beer. Like wine, the hallmark of fine mead is a delicate balance of sweetness, acidity and alcohol. But like craft beer, there's a wide range of possibilities when it comes to shaping the final product.



"It's no holds barred -- you can make any kind of flavor you want," says Moutela, who flavors his meads with fresh strawberries, pear juice, espresso and smoky chipotle peppers, among other things.



"Merlot has to taste like merlot; sauvignon blanc has to taste like sauvignon blanc. The opportunity for creativity (with mead) blew me away."



Unlike beer, wine, hard cider and whiskey, mead-making doesn't have much of a tradition in the United States. The first commercial operations opened in the 1960s and 20 years ago there were only a handful of producers, according to Michael Fairbrother, founder of the Moonlight Meadery in New Hampshire and president of the American Mead Makers Association.



Today, there are more than 300 meaderies -- most of them boutique outfits, such as Melovino, that are doing for mead what earlier generations of artisanal drink makers did for wine, beer and cider.



"Most consumers have only tried mead at Renaissance fairs, and they've only tried sweet mead," Fairbrother says. "And they say, 'No, thanks. I'm going back to beer.' "



But craft mead is a different animal. Except for dessert versions, it tends to be dry or off-dry, with subtle aromas and complex flavors that make it perfectly appropriate for serving with a special meal. Melovino's Sweet Affair His, for example, pairs well with charcuterie and salty cheeses like manchego and Parmesan.



And because honey is expensive, mead is priced more like a good bottle of chardonnay than a six-pack of beer. Most of Melovino's labels are in the $20 range -- for a 500-milliliter bottle (two-thirds the size of a regular wine bottle).



"He has a very good sense of flavor," Fairbrother says, of Moutela. "He can work with different honeys to produce unique styles of mead."



Moutela buys only "true source certified honey," which ensures that it's pure honey -- not cut with other types of sweeteners -- and is grown by beekeepers who follow sustainable practices.



Depending on the flavor profile he has in mind, Moutela might use buckwheat honey, tupelo honey or others that derive their flavors from orange blossoms or wildflowers.



One of my favorite Melovino meads is Essence, made only from orange-blossom honey, with no other flavorings. It has a subtle but unmistakable citrus note, both in the bouquet and on the palate.



Moutela, 34, typically dilutes his honey until the sugar level gets down to about 25 percent -- roughly the same as fresh-pressed merlot or chardonnay juice. He then ferments it in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks until the alcohol reaches 12 percent to 14 percent -- the strength of most table wines.



Melovino's chilly fermentation room also contains oak barrels that Moutela uses to age some of his meads, including a delicious cider-flavored version dubbed Applewood.



Moutela's skill as a mead-maker is impressive considering that he's been at it full time only since 2014, with assistance from his brother, Mitchell Moutela, and Jaime Santos and Iannarella. For the first year or so, the meads were available only on the premises, though recently, Melovino has begun distributing to liquor stores and restaurants in New Jersey and New York.



But don't pass up an opportunity for a tour and tasting in Union. The production process is intriguing, the meads are delicious, and Moutela and his staff are good for more puns than Jerry Seinfeld in "Bee Movie."



For example, noting references to mead in Shakespeare, Iannarella couldn't resist: "It's where 'To be or not to be' came from."





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