Mixed Meadia Côte de Mort Blanc de Blanc 2023
Mixed Meadia’s whole premise is Door County and Wisconsin-grown ingredients, cold-climate grapes, native fermentation, and minimal-intervention winemaking. It produces wine, mead, and cider inside the Hatch Distilling Co. facility.
The people behind Mixed Meadia are Allan Hyland and Emily Butteris, described by the winery as its growing/winemaking/creative team. They joined Hatch in the summer of 2022. Mixed Meadia shares Hatch’s production space, equipment and tasting room. Fermentation, blending, aging, and bottling are done on site.
The vineyards and the “local” philosophy
Mixed Meadia says all of its grapes come from the Wisconsin Ledge AVA. It has two small vineyards of roughly three acres each—one in Egg Harbor and another in Sturgeon Bay—and its long-term goal is to grow all the grapes used for its wines itself.
Rather than fighting Wisconsin’s climate by attempting to grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, or other classic Vitis vinifera varieties, Mixed Meadia embraces cold-hardy hybrids bred for northern growing conditions. The winery explicitly argues that hybrids offer better disease resistance and require fewer vineyard inputs while still making distinctive wine.
At Egg Harbor, the vineyard isn’t irrigated and the winery says it uses no insecticides or synthetic fertilizers. It currently uses fungicide for disease control but says its goal is eventually to move away from that as well. The younger Sturgeon Bay vineyard is being established organically.
And the local-food idea extends well beyond grapes. Its honey comes from northeastern Wisconsin; apples and cherries come from Egg Harbor; and most of the herbs, fruit and other ingredients used in its experimental beverages are grown, foraged, or sourced in Wisconsin.
The winemaking is quite unusual
Mixed Meadia’s grape wines aren’t simply inoculated with a standard commercial wine yeast. Before harvest, the winemakers pick clusters from the vineyard and put them into five-gallon containers in the vineyard to ferment spontaneously. At harvest they evaluate those fermentations. Batches producing undesirable aromas or flavors are discarded; the successful native-yeast cultures are then used to start the main fermentation.
What makes mixed meadia important in Door County
They represent a very different model of Wisconsin winery from the traditional Door County operation that brings in West Coast grapes or juice and makes the wine locally, or one that focuses on sweet fruit wines such as ones made from apples or cherries.
Mixed Meadia is deliberately pursuing regional wine: Wisconsin Ledge grapes, cold-climate hybrids, local native yeasts, local fruit and honey, and wines designed to taste like something that could plausibly come only from northeastern Wisconsin.
Mixed Meadia Côte de Mort Blanc de Blanc 2023
Côte de Mort is French for Death Coast. Here’s where that comes from: Door County is a peninsula with an island to the north, Green Bay to the west, and Lake Michigan to the east. The lake can be prone to violent storms, and if caught in one when ships were under sail they would often seek safety in Green Bay by passing between the peninsula and the island. Unfortunately, there are treacherous currents in the strait, and a number of ships and their crews were lost. The passage came to be known as Death’s Door, and hence the name of the county.
This wine comes under a crown cap, which is much less expensive than a cork and just as effective. it is made in the méthode champenoise, aka method traditionnel. After crush and a wild yeast ferment, sugar and more yeast are added to start a secondary ferment, and then the wine is immediately bottled and aged for two years.
Côte de Mort is a blend of 48% La Cresent, 32% Itasca, and 20% L’Acadie Blanc, all from Wisconsin. It pours a medium pale yellow. The mousse is somewhat coarse and dissipates rather quickly. The nose offers aromas of melon and white peach. These continue on the palate, which adds some dried apricot. as well. Since it is labeled a Brut, the wine is appropriately dry. Sadly, there are very little of the bread or yeast notes I cherish in a sparkling wine. It is all supported by bright acidity, with a crisp and refreshing finish. The ABV is 11.0%.
I enjoyed this sparkler with lobster-stuffed salmon pinwheels. It would pair nicely with just about any seafood, particularly pan-seared scallops with lemon-brown butter, Maryland crab cakes, or smoked salmon with crème fraîche. Its acidity and effervescence also make it a natural partner for Wisconsin artisan cheeses and the state’s traditional Friday fish fry.
Back to blog posts: winervana.com/blog/