Lindisfarne Mead
A mead from Holy Island, blending honey with grapes.
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Lindisfarne Mead is a mead produced in Northumberland, North East England, at St Aidan's Winery on Holy Island. It is notable for blending honey—the traditional main ingredient of mead—with grapes, making it an unusual variation of the beverage.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Pyment (mead blended with grape juice or wine)
- Producer
- St Aidan's Winery
- Location
- Holy Island, Northumberland, North East England
- Ingredients
- Honey
- fermented grape juice
- herbs
- natural well water
- neutral spirits
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Lindisfarne Mead traces its roots to the medieval period, when monks inhabiting Lindisfarne Priory are believed to have made mead. In the 1960s, J. Michael Hackett opened St Aidan's Winery on the island, and the mead is now distributed internationally. The product is fermented from honey, then blended with fermented grape juice, herbs, natural well water, and a neutral spirits. Because it contains grape juice or wine, Lindisfarne Mead is considered a pyment.
In 2006, after four decades of negotiations, Lindisfarne Mead began exporting to the United States. US authorities claimed that the mead, as it contained grapes and herbs, was not mead by their definition. It was reported that the product was to be exported to the USA under the name Lindisfarne Mede to differentiate it from honey-only meads.
Reader's Guide
Lindisfarne Mead occupies a distinctive place in the mead tradition due to its inclusion of grapes, which classifies it as a pyment. This blending reflects a departure from honey-only meads and has shaped its identity both domestically and internationally. The mead's roots in the medieval monastic practice on Holy Island connect it to a long history of mead-making, while its modern production at St Aidan's Winery, established in the 1960s, brought it to a global market.
The dispute with US authorities over its classification—whether a mead containing grapes and herbs could be called mead—led to the reported use of the name Lindisfarne Mede for the US market, highlighting regulatory differences in beverage definitions. The mead's honey is sourced from around the world, and its recipe includes herbs and neutral spirits, contributing to its unique character. Its international distribution and the decades-long effort to enter the US market underscore its significance as a product that bridges historical tradition and contemporary commerce.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Lindisfarne Mead (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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