Tucked away behind a strip mall in New Jersey is an embodiment of the future of craft beverages.
Here, Sergio Moutela of Melovino Meadery is putting out his craft: classic and modern styles of mead. Sergio has combined an artisan’s creativity and intuition with scientific analysis to create award-winning mead.
The Backstory
Mead is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey and water. Its flavor is neither beer-like nor wine-like, but something unique. For many tasters, mead is something completely new.
However, mead is likely the oldest alcoholic beverage, with evidence of fermented honey found as far back as 6500 BC. Moutela adds his own creative, modern twists on some of his products, adding everything from coffee to chipotle chilies.
“It’s very related to wine making so I said this is great, everything I’m familiar with but with the creativity that beer making offers.”
Of course, it was not easy to become New Jersey’s first commercial meadery. State law in New Jersey requires (and still does) that wine can only be made commercially from grapes or other fruit. New Jersey Statutes Title 33:1 bars all sorts of drinks under the winery licensing: sake, dandelion wine, and, most importantly, mead.
Moutela actually had to present a proposal to the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Soon after, Melovino Meadery was issued a special permit to produce mead in New Jersey. Since then, Moutela has been involved in drafting a bill to allow official licenses for cideries and meaderies in New Jersey.
Quality control was another important item on the agenda for an upstart meadery.
“My first few batches (as a home brewer) were terrible and tasted like acetone… They got better and better once I got a handle on my nutrient additions and temperature control, ” said Moutela, when asked about his first foray into mead making.
Melovino has taken its fair share of awards including eight medals at the Mazer Cup International, one of the world's largest mead competitions; five of which in the most recent 2016 competition.
Moutela attributes his success to good mead analysis. “Get to know your mead. Invest in some free SO,2, formol, and total titratable acidity meters. Have that late night phone call with your mead like you did with someone that you were into when you were a kid.”
He added that the more you could learn about your mead, the better the result. Certainly knowing mead quality parameters are essential for a quality, consistent product. Mead is primarily made from honey which, unlike grapes, is deficient in many of the nutrients required for healthy fermentation (especially nitrogen). Additional nutrients are necessary in order to support the conversion of honey sugars to alcohol by yeast without the development of off-flavors, such as a sulfide aroma (rotten eggs).
Sergio's Analytical Toolkit
When Moutela first started testing his mead, it was important that his testing lab was set up for success. This included all of the basic laboratory equipment, such as glassware, thermometers, and pipettes.
After that, pH was the first parameter he started out with since it has an influence on many aspects of the mead making process. Related to pH, he also added a titratable acidity (TA) titrator to fine tune the crispness and tartness of the mead. Moutela also added a SO2 mini-titrator, which helped with his sulfur dioxide additions to stabilize the wine. Finally, Moutela moved into formol number testing (YAN), which helps determine the amount of nitrogen available to yeasts.
The combination of instrumentation allows Moutela to experiment with new mead recipes, relying on the numbers to know that the product is going to be stable and delicious.
Big Plans
Melovino currently has distribution plans in the works, with plans to distribute to select stores, restaurants, and bars beginning March 2016. In the meantime, fans head into the meadery and to their website, where all meads are available for sale.
If you are in the New Jersey area, tours of the meadery are available on the weekends. Find Melovino Meadery at: www.melovino.com
