Local Berry, Ancient Beverage: Hidden Legend Huckleberry Mead

Sampled: Oct. 31, 2010

Local ingredients always intrigue me, and anyone who saw the Mountain West beer logs knows of my fondess for huckleberry products. The Hidden Legend Winery in Victor, Montana produces a lineup of meads with local ingredients, as well as dandelion wine.

This mead pours with a pale strawberry color, with almost no effervescence, as it should be. The nose is highly floral, with a dash of black pepper. As a blend of 60 percent honey wine and 40 percent, both flavors run evenly from nose to finish. The honey brings its sweetness and rounded textures, with the huckleberries pushing up against it with a strong, complex tartness. It delivers plenty of huckleberry and honey.

Not that the huckleberry mead lacks surprises. A distinct nuttiness manifests before the finish with an intense dose of hazelnut. It almost made me wonder if a finger of Frangelica lurked in this mead (obviously, there wasn't). Huckleberries swarm in the finish with a delightful tartness softened by the honey.

Why must most mead producers have labels with a surly Viking? Yes, the beverage has origins in the Medieval England and the Nordic countries. But this mead would pour just fine minus the stock imagery.

The brewery uses Montana honey and local fruit in its other fruit meads – wild elderberry, chokecherry and dry chokecherry. Next time in Montana, I could fill the suitcase with mead alone, so long as they all pour as beautifully as the huckleberry version.