Honey Sommelier: The Tasting of Honey - Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - page 117

The last taste sensation was a wine's aftertaste or the final impression you are left with.
Tasting,heexplained,isessentially anolfactoryexperience.Trytastingsomethingwith
a stuffed-up nose. It's impossible. Wine also has its own descriptive vocabulary, and
Joe always had the perfect term to precisely describe each taste we experienced. Dry,
smoky, fruity, feminine, or sweet were some of the descriptive words he used.
It quickly became apparent to me that there were many correlations between wine
and honey. Both were agricultural products harvested in the late summer, and the tastes
of both were governed by floral sources. I had collected a number of different honeys
from around the world and started taking note of the differences in color, texture, fla-
vors,andnectarsources.ThevarietalsofhoneythatI'dsampledfromaroundtheworld
seemed endless, and soon I convinced Joe to put his super palate to use tasting honey.
Many of the same terms used to describe wine could also be applied to the taste of
honey, and we made up a few terms of our own. At this point I began to understand the
real depth of experience that honey had to offer. My experience of working with wine
mademyreverenceforhoneyevendeeper,andIbelievedthathoneydeservedthesame
noble recognition as wine.
A RTISANAL H ONEY , T ERROIR, AND V INTAGES
It can be said that honey is only as good as the beekeepers who harvest it.
Artisanal honeys are those produced by individuals using traditional methods and
thus preserving the integrity of their products. With artisanal honey, quality and char-
acter are highlighted, rather than quantity and consistency. Beekeepers have to make
many decisions regarding the management of their honeybees during a single season.
Timing is everything, so colonies have to be at their peak strength and available to for-
age the fields at the exact time of the nectar flow. Beekeepers must select appropriate
field locations for their honeybees and know when the nectar flow begins, when to add
and remove honey shallows, and the best procedure to extract the honey.
Mother Nature must cooperate too. The flavor profile and essence of any bottle of
honey will depend largely on its terroir, which fundamentally determines the type of
plant life in a specific growing area. Plants will bloom and produce nectar according to
climate, elevation, weather and rainfall, nutrients in the soil, temperature, and available
sunlight. Each flower has its own distinct type of nectar, which is produced at specific
times of the season, in specific regions, and more complexly, at specific times of the
day. Ultimately, the type of nectar and the flowers dictate the composition of a honey,
like the grape dictates the resulting wine. Honey harvests can have “good” years and
“bad”dependingupontheclimatic diversity.Changesinweatherdictatewhichyearsor
vintages were bountiful. Limited harvest honeys or honey from a rare nectar source can