Honey Is a Lot Like Wine: Terroir, Vintages and Tasting Notes

Ask someone to describe a wine and you'll hear about fruit, oak, acidity and a long finish. Ask them to describe honey and most people stop at one word: sweet. As beekeepers, we think honey deserves the same attention as a good bottle of wine. Both are shaped by plants, soil, weather and the hands that harvest them, and no two are ever quite the same. Here's how honey and wine are alike, where they differ, and how to taste honey like a sommelier at home.

The flower is the grape

A wine tastes the way it does largely because of its grape: a Pinot Noir and a Cabernet Sauvignon have little in common. Honey works the same way, except the "grape" is the nectar the bees collected. Beekeepers even use a wine word for it: varietal honey.

• Monofloral honey comes mostly from one kind of flower, like a single-grape wine. It has a clear, recognizable personality.
• Polyfloral or wildflower honey comes from many flowers blooming at the same time, like a winemaker's blend. It changes from one season and one location to the next.

A few varietals you'll find in Quebec and across Canada, and how they usually taste:

• Clover: light, mild and delicate, what most people think of as "typical" honey.
• Canola: very mild, and it crystallizes quickly into a smooth, pale, creamy honey.
• Basswood (linden): fresh and bright, sometimes with an almost minty note.
• Blueberry: amber and fruity, a specialty of the regions where wild blueberries grow, like Lac-Saint-Jean.
• Goldenrod and aster: late summer and fall flowers that give a bolder, golden honey.
• Buckwheat: very dark, malty and strong, close to molasses, with a long aftertaste.

Terroir: a sense of place

Winemakers talk about terroir, the way soil, climate and landscape give a wine its sense of place. Honey has terroir too, perhaps even more than wine, because bees forage over a wide area around their hive. Everything that grows within flying distance of the hive ends up in the jar: wildflowers in a field, trees along a river, gardens and parks in the city.

That's why a wildflower honey from around Montreal won't taste like one from the Eastern Townships or the Gaspé coast, even if it's harvested the same week. We explore this further in Quebec Honey: Discover the Taste and Terroir of Local Honey.

Every harvest is a vintage

Wine lovers know that a 2019 and a 2021 from the same vineyard can taste very different. Honey is no different. A dry summer, a wet spring or an early frost changes which flowers bloom and how much nectar they give, and the honey follows.

Even within one year, the season matters. Spring honey is usually lighter in colour and more delicate, while fall honey, made from late flowers like goldenrod and aster, is often darker and bolder. Each harvest is a little snapshot of the weeks the bees spent foraging. We compare the two in Quebec Spring vs Fall Honey.

Colour: from white to dark, like white to red

Just as a wine's colour gives you a first hint of what's in the glass, honey's colour hints at its flavour. Pale honeys tend to be mild and floral, while darker honeys are usually richer, stronger and more complex.

Honey colour is even measured officially. In Canada, consumer honey is sorted into four colour classes, White, Golden, Amber and Dark, read on a Pfund grader, which compares the honey to a wedge of amber glass and gives a reading in millimetres. One important detail: colour is not a measure of quality. A dark buckwheat honey can be every bit as good as a pale clover honey, just as a red wine isn't better or worse than a white.

Tasting notes: honey has a vocabulary too

Wine has its famous aroma wheel. Honey has one now as well: in 2014, the Honey and Pollination Center at UC Davis, part of the university's Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, published a Honey Flavor and Aroma Wheel modelled on the wine and cheese wheels, with about 100 words to describe honey. In Italy, honey tasting is taken as seriously as wine: the country keeps a national register of experts in the sensory analysis of honey, people trained over several courses who judge honey competitions. They're often called honey sommeliers.

Some of the notes you might find in a jar of honey:

• Floral: rose, violet, fresh blossoms.
• Fruity: berries, apple, apricot, citrus.
• Warm and sweet: caramel, butterscotch, brown sugar, vanilla.
• Herbal and fresh: hay, cut grass, mint.
• Woody and earthy: wood, malt, molasses, even a little smoke.
• Spicy: cinnamon, clove, pepper.

Some honeys also have a little acidity, a slight bitterness or a warming feeling at the back of the throat, just like the tannins or acidity in wine.

Texture is honey's "body"

A wine can be light bodied or full bodied. Honey has body too, but you feel it as texture. Some honeys stay liquid for months, others crystallize within weeks into a soft, creamy or firm texture. It depends mostly on the balance of natural sugars in the nectar, so it's part of each honey's character, not a flaw (we explain the science in Why Natural Honey Crystallizes).

Beekeepers can also guide the texture. Our Whipped Honey is 100% raw honey whipped for 3 hours with a little finely crystallized honey, which gives it tiny crystals and a smooth, spreadable texture (more in What Is Whipped Honey?). And for the most direct taste of the hive, there's raw honeycomb, honey still sealed in the wax the bees built, a bit like tasting wine straight from the barrel.

Where honey and wine part ways

• Honey isn't fermented. Wine is made by yeast turning grape sugar into alcohol. Honey is made by bees, who turn nectar into honey and dry it until it's thick enough to keep. Well-ripened honey has so little water that it naturally resists fermentation.
• Honey doesn't need cellaring. A great wine can improve for years. Honey doesn't get better with age the same way; it's at its most aromatic in the first year or two. It stays good much longer, but the colour can slowly darken and the aromas soften over time.
• Raw means untouched. Much grocery store honey is heated and finely filtered, which can flatten its aromas. Raw honey keeps the character of its harvest, a bit like a wine that hasn't been stripped of its personality. We explain the difference in Why Buy Honey from a Beekeeper Instead of the Grocery Store?

And of course, the two meet in mead, the honey wine. Made by fermenting honey with water, mead is one of the oldest fermented drinks in the world, and Quebec has a good number of mead makers (hydromelleries) if you'd like to taste the two worlds together.

How to host a honey tasting

A honey tasting is easy to set up at home and makes a fun holiday party activity. You need very little:

• 3 to 5 different honeys, ideally a mix of light and dark, liquid and creamy.
• Small spoons or wooden tasting sticks, one per honey per person.
• Something to cleanse the palate: water, apple slices or plain crackers.
• Room temperature honey. Cold dulls the aromas, just like with wine.

Taste from the mildest to the strongest, so the bold honeys don't overpower the delicate ones. For each honey:

1. Look. Notice the colour and the texture. Is it clear, cloudy, liquid or creamy?
2. Smell. Take a slow breath over the spoon. Floral? Fruity? Woody? Like caramel?
3. Taste. Let a small amount melt on your tongue instead of swallowing right away. Notice the sweetness, then any acidity, bitterness or warmth.
4. Finish. How long does the flavour linger? Does it change as it fades?

Ask everyone to jot down a few words for each honey, then compare notes. You'll be surprised how differently people describe the same jar.

Pair honey with cheese like you would wine

The golden rule of wine pairing works for honey too: match the intensity. Delicate honeys go with fresh, mild cheeses, and bold honeys stand up to strong, aged cheeses. A few pairings to try:

• Fresh goat cheese or ricotta: a light, floral honey or our Whipped Lemon Honey.
• Brie and other soft cheeses: Wildflower Honey, or honeycomb right on the rind.
• Aged cheddar: a darker, bolder honey, or our Hot Honey for a sweet and spicy kick.
• Blue cheese: the strongest, darkest honey you have. The contrast is the whole point.
• Manchego or a firm sheep's milk cheese: our Lemon & Cardamom Honey.

Add some walnuts, sliced pears or figs and a crusty baguette, and you have a board that pairs beautifully with a glass of wine too.

Build your own honey flight

Our honeys make an easy tasting flight: a wildflower honey to start, two creamy whipped honeys for texture, and three flavoured honeys to finish.

See them all in our Quebec honey collection. A tasting flight also makes a lovely gift for the wine lover in your life; find more ideas in Why Honey Makes the Perfect Gift and our Holiday Gift Guide.

Frequently asked questions

Is honey really like wine?

In many ways, yes. Both get their flavour from the plants they come from, the place they're grown and the weather of the year. Like wine, honey has varietals, terroir, vintages, a range of colours and its own tasting vocabulary. The big difference is that honey isn't fermented.

What is monofloral honey?

Monofloral honey comes mostly from the nectar of one kind of flower, like clover, blueberry or buckwheat, so it has a distinct flavour. Wildflower (polyfloral) honey comes from many flowers and changes with the season and the location, a bit like a blended wine.

Does honey get better with age like wine?

Not really. Honey keeps for a very long time when stored closed and dry, but it's most aromatic in its first year or two. Over time it may darken slightly or crystallize, which is natural and doesn't mean it has spoiled.

What is mead?

Mead, also called honey wine, is made by fermenting honey with water. It's one of the oldest fermented drinks in the world, and it can be dry, sweet, still or sparkling.

Why does dark honey taste stronger?

Darker honeys usually come from nectars richer in minerals and aromatic compounds, like buckwheat, so they tend to taste bolder and maltier. Colour is a good first clue, but it isn't a measure of quality.

Taste the season in every jar

Next time you open a jar of honey, take a moment to look, smell and taste it the way you would a glass of wine. You might discover flowers, fruit or caramel you never noticed before. Come taste our honeys in person at one of our Christmas markets, and tell us what notes you find at info@mielbrut.com or on Instagram (@mielbrut_com).