Enlightenment Wines ‘Night Eyes’ Mead Pétillant

Location: United States, New York

Winemaker: Raphael Lyon

Fruit: cherries, apples

Winemaking: made from New York State honey, cherries, and apples, fermented together for six months before being infused with hand-picked sumac and rose hips. After aging for another six months in wood barrels, this bone-dry mead goes through a second bottle fermentation that produces its effervescence

From the Winemakers: If the meads made by Enlightenment Wines Meadery were a song catalogue, ‘Night Eyes’ would be the pop hit—with some funk in the trunk. This sparkling, pet-nat style mead is bubbly and fragrant up front, followed by intricate flavors of wild-fermented yeast and foraged herbs. Night Eyes is sure to bring the party to any gathering!

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that challenged traditionally held views and encouraged trial and error and first-hand experience over accepted wisdom. Thinkers refused to go along with inherited norms and conventions without personal experimentation.

The word “Enlightenment” reminds us that mead-making, and in fact, all winemaking, is an ancient craft based on individuals using their senses to explore tastes for themselves and to decide what brings them pleasure. We don’t need authorization or permission from on high to know what we like, or even to learn how to make it. Winemaking is firstly an empirical practice of observing the natural world. It is a world of experimentation and curiosity. That is the world of Enlightenment Wines Meadery.