To Bee or Not To Bee
The Drama of Mead (Fermented Honey)

Cast
(in order of appearance)

220 million B.C. (give or take an eon or two) -
The BEE (and the dinosaur) appear.

120 Million B.C.—
FLOWERS appear. Bees + flowers = HONEY.

10000 B.C. (margin of error = plus or minus 100%)—Man has not yet learned to make wine or beer. However, he has learned that if something like four parts of water are added to one part of honey, it can produce man's first fermented beverage.

900 B.C.—The Ethiopian QUEEN OF SHEBA starts the first desert U.P.S., using a new means of commecial transportation, the camel. Her favorite beverage is MEAD! (I talked with a rep of the Ethiopian Wine Co. a few years ago and he said their national drink still is MEAD.)

400 B.C.—PLATO reports that the ancient Greeks drank MEAD before they learned to make wine.

1253 A.D.—Mogul Prince MANGU KHAN has a gold fountain with four spouts. They dispense rice wine, fermented mare's milk, grape wine, and MEAD!

 
1340 A.D.—The first writer to praise mead extensively in English literature is born to a London wine merchant. The infant is named GEOFFREY CHAUCER, pictured. His Canterbury Tales include passages such as, "Her mouth was sweet as Mead."

c.1960 A.D.—LAWRENCE BARGETTO in the Santa Cruz Mountains using local honey produces the winery's first MEAD. It's time for Intermission, and a sip of...

Our Wine of the Day

Chaucer's Mead

Composition - Made from pure honey with no artificial flavorings. Both sugar and alcohol are in the 10% range.
Busy Bees - I didn't count them but I'm told that bees must visit about 30,000 flowers to produce enough honey for one bottle of mead.
Service—a) Give it 30 minutes in the frig and then serve as an aperitif and great conversation piece, b) for dessert, pour over vanilla ice cream on canned pears.
Some Like It Hot—The bottle comes with a baglet of spices so you can make hot, spiced Mead. Long ago the Russians loved "Metheglin," MEAD with the addition of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and mace.
John Bargetto—A while back John stopped by and ploughed through my library discovering many MEAD tidbits. We've discussed doing something more comprehensive on the subject. Stay tuned.
Contact—Office of Martin Bargetto, (800)4-BARGETTO, www.bargetto.com, FAX (831) 475-2664.
Price—Under $10
Another Way to Taste It—This will be the first of 60 wines tasted in my History of Wine course at San Francisco State University next month.