Mead Recommendations

Dan asked on my prior post for some recommendations on mead, and I'm guessing most people have never tried it. I've only tried a few commercial meads to date, and they vary widely. In general, they seem to be sweeter than most white wine and definitely have a honey aftertaste. I've only had two meads and one melomel (mead with fruit), so my experience is limited. If anyone else has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.

I've tried the following:
Chaucer's Cellars - they're not kidding when they say "dessert style". This is a sweet, sticky mead that really reminds you that you're drinking fermented honey. While it's suitable for a dessert wine (and does taste good), this isn't something you'd want to drink a glass of while hanging out on the patio with friends. This is something that would go well with a lemon tart or other fruit-based dessert. It's available at most liquor stores; I've seen it at Hy Vee Liquor and Royal.

Pirtle Mead - I picked up a bottle of their sparkling mead at Gomer's on Holmes. They only had the sparkling and the sweet mead, but I'm really curious to try the blackberry melomel (which won gold at the 2008 International Mead Festival). I liked the sparkling mead a lot, and it's going to take a lot of convincing for me to enjoy a still mead as much. This mead was still a little on the sweet side, but much closer to a Riesling or Gewürtztraminer. If you enjoy the wines out of Hermann, you'll like this one. And - bonus - the winery/meadery is in Weston! I liked the mead so much, I plan to make a trip to the winery.

Redstone Mead - I've only had their sparkling melomel (while in Portland), but John's had several of their meads and speaks highly of them. I'd love to try their hopped mead, but since they don't yet distribute to Missouri I guess I'll have to wait.

The carbonation in the meads I've tried has definitely balanced out the sweetness. If you like dessert wines, by all means go for a sweeter mead - you'll probably like it.