I’d like to talk a little about the orchard.
We are going to begin letting people get a look at what we are doing there. We are asking people to support us via a set of tour packages. For mead, wine and craft beer lovers, the chance to get in on the ground floor of this activity is, IMHO, the kind of chance I would have killed for in the case of the wineries I genuinely love.
The tours we are offering should be a ton of fun, and very informative. The first few bottles that come out of this orchard are rare and represent the first works of a meadery orchard that is intended to change the face of fruit meads forever.
Schramm’s Mead has always been dedicated to the challenge of learning what goes into the finest mead we can make. As has always been the case with grape varieties for wine and malting barley and hop varieties for craft beer, we have learned from experience that there are great and not-so-great varieties of fruit and honey for mead making.
Wineries have also been learning how and where to grow the best wine making grapes. When it comes to fruit for mead, no one else is going to do this for us. That’s fine. We have been doing this for 30 years with the Schaarbeeks.
We’re asking the mead community to support this effort because this is learning we all need. The Mazer Cup Mead Competition and “The Compleat Meadmaker” were never really about making anybody any meaningful amount of money. They were always really about growing the beverage and helping to expand mead making knowledge. This effort is the same thing. Ideally, the orchard will make Schramm’s Mead stronger and more successful. But this is really about the 50-year plan. I am 62 years old. The vast majority of what will accrue from the orchard will happen after I have retired, and hopefully even after I have passed on. That will be a decent legacy.
This is about doing what is best for the beverage I love. The knowledge we gain will benefit the whole mead world. As has always been the case, what we learn will make its way into our industry, whether it is through the Mead Institute, UC Davis, The Brewers Association, The AMMA, books, articles, or social media. It’s always been about the mead, and so far, the things that Schramm’s Mead and I have done have had very good impacts.
The less-than-altruistic part of these first few bottles for collectors is that this is an opportunity that has not and will not come along for generations.
I know it is not modest to say it, but the future of mead has always been kind of easy to see from where I stand. I like this future.