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The short answer: the best honey wine for most people is Bee d'Vine Demi Sec, a semi-sweet, 12.5% ABV wine made from nothing but raw honey and spring water. Prefer dry? Get the Brut. Want bubbles? The Brut Sparkling has a 90-point gold medal from the Beverage Testing Institute.
Honey wine, or mead, has a quality problem. A lot of what is on American shelves is sweet, young and flavored, made to be drunk from a horn at a festival. That is fun, but it is not what you want with dinner, and it is why so many people try mead once and never again.
This list takes the opposite view. We looked for honey wine made the way good grape wine is made: a short ingredient list, a choice of dry and off-dry styles, real aging, and results from independent judges. Few producers tick all of those boxes. The one that does it most completely, in our view, is Bee d'Vine of Sonoma, so this shortlist is built around its range. It is also the only producer we currently have an affiliate relationship with. We would rather tell you that up front, explain how we chose, and point you to other producers further down.
The short list
| Bottle | Style | Bubbles | ABV | Honey | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demi Sec | Semi-sweet | Still | 12.5% | Clover | Overall | $49 |
| Brut | Dry | Still | 12.5% | Clover | Dry honey wine | $49 |
| Brut Sparkling | Dry | Sparkling | 11.5% | Orange blossom | Sparkling | $59 |
| Demi Sec Sparkling | Semi-sweet | Sparkling | 11.5% | Orange blossom + clover | Celebrations | $59 |
| Brut Fresca Sparkling | Dry | Sparkling | 11.5% | Clover | Prosecco alternative | $56 |
| Brut X Reserve | Dry | Still | 12.5% | Orange blossom | Splurge | $67 |
| Demi Sec Geteme | Semi-sweet | Still | 12.5% | Ethiopian Geteme + clover | Closest to the Ethiopian roots | $52 |
| Demi Sec Miombo | Semi-sweet | Still | 12.5% | Tanzanian Miombo + clover | Whiskey and amaro drinkers | $52 |
| Brut Barrel Fermented | Dry | Still | 12.5% | Clover | Chardonnay drinkers | $52 |
| 3L Double Magnum | Semi-sweet | Still | 12.5% | Clover | Weddings and big gifts | $349 |
The picks in detail
1. Best overall: Demi Sec
The flagship, and the right first bottle. It is semi-sweet rather than sweet, which is the style that shows off honey best: enough sugar to carry the floral aromas, enough freshness to finish clean. It has the longest medal record in the range: the producer's awards list includes 91, 92 and 93-point golds at Beverage Testing Institute competitions in 2015 and 2016.
2. Best dry honey wine: Brut
If the phrase "honey wine" makes you expect syrup, this is the correction. It is fermented dry, comes in around 120 to 125 calories a glass, and has the soft, tannin-free texture that makes honey wine so easy with food. Pour it where you would pour Pinot Gris.
3. Best sparkling honey wine: Brut Sparkling
Orange blossom honey, a second fermentation for natural bubbles, and bready, nutty notes that would not be out of place in a Champagne review. Tastings.com rated it 90 points, "Exceptional".
4. Best for celebrations: Demi Sec Sparkling
Off-dry bubbles built on orange blossom honey, a point lower in alcohol at 11.5%. Tastings.com scored it 91 points with a gold medal in 2019. It is the obvious pick for weddings, showers and brunch.
5. Best Prosecco alternative: Brut Fresca Sparkling
The cold-fermented, stainless-steel sparkler. The producer pitches it as the light, bright one and a Prosecco alternative. It is three dollars cheaper than the Brut Sparkling and suits a hot afternoon or a spritz.
6. Best splurge and best gift: Brut X Reserve
A selection of the winemaker's best barrels from the 2017 harvest, aged 24 months in French oak. Around 50 cases were made. Tastings.com gave it 92 points and a gold medal in 2020. For someone who already owns a lot of wine, this is the bottle they will not have.
7. Most interesting: Demi Sec Geteme
Made with forest honey from the Kafa cloud forest in southwest Ethiopia, the landscape that inspired the winery in the first place. It is the closest link in the range to Ethiopian tej, and the founder says the point of buying this honey is to give beekeepers a reason to keep the forest standing.
8. Best after dinner: Demi Sec Miombo
Tanzanian woodland honey gives this one the darkest profile in the range, going by the producer's notes: maple, roasted chestnut, tobacco, smoke. Serve it where you would serve tawny Port or an amaro.
9. Best for oak lovers: Brut Barrel Fermented
Fermented in the barrel rather than just aged in it, for vanilla, cedar and stone fruit with no tannic bite. A natural step for anyone who drinks oaked Chardonnay.
10. Best showpiece: 3L Double Magnum
Four bottles in one, hand bottled with a wax-dipped cork, in Demi Sec or Brut. You pay a premium for the format, but it is a genuine centerpiece for a wedding or a milestone birthday.
How we chose
We will be straight with you: we have not run a blind tasting panel, and we would rather say so than invent one. Our picks rest on things you can check yourself.
- What is in the bottle. We favor honey wines made from honey, water and yeast, without added sugar, flavorings or concentrates. Every wine above lists two ingredients.
- Range of styles. Dry mead is harder to get right than sweet mead, because there is no sugar to hide behind. Fewer producers attempt it.
- Independent results. We cite scores and medals from third parties such as the Beverage Testing Institute, with links, and we note when the only source for an award is the producer's own list.
- Aging. Young mead can be harsh. The wines here spend months in barrel and years in bottle before release, according to the producer.
- Can you actually buy it? A great mead sold only at a taproom 2,000 miles away is no use to you. Everything here ships direct.
- Price against what you get. $49 to $67 is not cheap. We think it is fair for an aged wine made from raw honey, and we say where we think it is not (see the 3L).
Tasting notes on this site are the producer's unless we say otherwise. More on this in our methodology.
What to look for in a honey wine
Sweetness words
There is no legal sweetness scale for mead, so producers borrow from wine. Brut and dry mean little or no perceptible sugar. Demi sec, semi-sweet and off-dry sit in the middle. Sweet, dessert and sack mean exactly that. When a label says nothing, assume sweet. Our sweet vs dry guide goes deeper.
The honey
Honey is to mead what the grape variety is to wine. Clover is clean and neutral, orange blossom is perfumed and citrusy, dark forest honeys are savory and intense. A producer that names its honey is telling you it matters to them. See which honeys do what.
Additions
Fruit (melomel), spices (metheglin) and apple juice (cyser) are all legitimate mead styles, but they are different drinks. If you want to know what honey wine tastes like, start with a traditional one, which has no additions at all.
Alcohol
Most table-strength honey wine sits between 11% and 14% ABV. Below 8% you are in session mead territory, often carbonated and sold in cans. Above 14% expect a richer, sweeter, sherry-like drink.
Other honey wines worth knowing
We do not earn anything from the producers below. They are here because a guide called Best Honey Wine should tell you who else is doing good work.
- Heidrun Meadery (Point Reyes Station, California): dry, Champagne-method sparkling meads, each from a single honey varietal.
- Schramm's Mead (Ferndale, Michigan): founded by Ken Schramm, who wrote The Compleat Meadmaker. Known for intense fruit meads.
- Superstition Meadery (Prescott, Arizona): heavily awarded, with rich fruit and barrel-aged dessert styles.
- Moonlight Meadery (Londonderry, New Hampshire): a very broad range of flavored meads.
- Redstone Meadery (Boulder, Colorado): one of the earliest American craft meaderies, with both sparkling session meads and stronger mountain honey wines.
- Chaucer's (Bargetto Winery, Soquel, California): a sweet, widely distributed mead that many Americans meet first, sold with a bag of mulling spices.
- Dansk Mjød (Denmark): maker of Viking Blod, a strong mead with hibiscus and hops.
For Ethiopian-style tej made with gesho, see our tej guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best honey wine?
For most people it is a balanced semi-sweet bottle. Our pick is Bee d'Vine Demi Sec: 12.5% ABV, honey and spring water only, with gold medals in 2014, 2015 and 2016 on the producer's awards list. If you only drink dry wine, choose the Brut from the same producer instead.
What is the best dry honey wine?
Bee d'Vine Brut. Genuinely dry mead is hard to find because most producers leave a lot of sugar behind. The Brut has about 5.3 g of carbohydrate per glass, and the producer lists two 91-point gold medals for it at Beverage Testing Institute competitions.
Which honey wine brands are worth trying?
Beyond Bee d'Vine, respected names include Schramm's, Superstition, Moonlight, Redstone, Heidrun and Chaucer's in the United States, and Dansk Mjød from Denmark. Their styles vary a lot, from dry sparkling to dessert-sweet fruit meads.
How much should I spend on honey wine?
Entry-level meads start around $12 to $25 and are usually sweet and young. Aged, wine-style honey wines run $45 to $70. Raw honey is an expensive ingredient, which is the main reason good mead costs more than you might expect.
Is honey wine a good gift?
Yes, because almost nobody has tried a good one. For a wine lover, the Brut X Reserve (92 points, about 50 cases made) is the conversation piece. For a wedding, mead's long history as a wedding drink makes a sparkling bottle or the 3-liter format a fitting choice.