Our meads are made with enthusiasm, love, and care, which is reflected in their quality and exceptional taste. The basis is always only the best quality honey and yeast. All types of our meads are only fermented cold to preserve the best of the honey. The production of mead is the domain of Milan Pleva, he has been doing it for more than 30 years and he constantly enjoys improving and perfecting their taste. He also likes to experiment and try new procedures and flavours, when he enriches mead with some fruit, herb from the garden or other natural treasures during the fermentation of honey. In this ongoing newsletter, we would like to inform you about the successes of our meads in competitions.
Because we make meads with joy and honestly, we are well aware of their quality and the great feedback from our customers is also a clear indicator of the quality.
However, in 2019, we decided to enter a world competition with one of our meads in order to get feedback from an expert point of view as well. And we have to admit that the result was very encouraging, it was a strong incentive for us and a confirmation that we are doing well in our Potštejn cellar.
Since then, some of our meads occasionally have taken part in a competition, and this is why we decided to share our successes with you, so you can test if you agree with the opinions of the expert jurors :-)
As of the publication date of this article, 9 of our meads are already proud of the award. These include both single-flower meads and our limited-edition, enriched during the honey fermentation process with some fruit, an herb from the garden or other natural treasures. Take a look at the overall overview of award-winning meads:
Awarded Pleva meads in the years:
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2023
Regional Food Brand competition
Linden Mead wine - Regional Food of the Hradec Králové Region in the category of non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages
Mead Madness Cup:
This is how the jurors evaluated it:
Appearance: Perfectly transparent.
Aroma: Very clean with peaches and honey up front.
Body: Very nice and sweet peach through the medium body.
Finishing taste: The mead finishes very well, sweet but certainly not too sweet. The warming alcohol washes away the taste of honey and prepares you for the next sip.
Overall rating: It is a well-balanced, well-made mead that brings subtle peaches, sweet honey and just the right amount of alcohol into play. Very enjoyable!
This is how the jurors evaluated it:
Appearance: Brilliantly clear mead of light straw colour. Beautiful.
Aroma: A wonderful fresh mint scent, although it is hard not to think of toothpaste. Very nice. Mint masks any honey aroma.
Body: Very full body, great mint scent (no toothpaste!). A beautiful honey expression. Nice balance between sweetness and sourness. Very good!
Finishing taste: Very long finish with lingering honey, mint, and acid. Delicious!
Overall rating: Very nice mead indeed! A great balance between honey, mint, and acid. It reminds us of sweet Moroccan mint tea with honey. -
2022
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2021
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2020
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2019
About competitions
Mead Madness Cup is probably the largest and most important international mead competition in Europe, which is held in Poland. It has been organized since 2018 in cooperation with the European Mead Makers Association (EMMA) and is organized as a side event of the European Mead Makers Conference. The prestige of this competition is enhanced by the participation of expert jurors from all over Europe.
The competition has gained great popularity and prestige. Hundreds of meads from all over the world compete in it every year in several categories. The competition here is therefore fierce, and every success in this competition is therefore very much appreciated.
Mead of the Year – Medovinka roka is the most important Slovak mead competition, organized annually by the Slovak Association of Beekeepers.
Both traditional meads and flavoured meads are evaluated in the competition, the competing meads are assessed in several categories by an expert jury that evaluates the quality, taste, aroma and other properties of each mead.
Of course, being awarded by experts does not mean that the awarded mead will necessarily be to everyone's taste. Even within our family business, each of us would probably recommend a completely different mead to you as the best. However, it is possible that this overview will make it easier for you to find your favourite one, or help you decide if you want to give mead to someone as a gift. In any case, we would love to hear how you liked each mead. We make them for you, and it is therefore important that they taste good to you.
