Earle Estates Meadery

Went during the May pairing event. Was disappointed in the amount of information shared about the wines featured. The tasting felt very rushed: (

The mead here was delicious. We were the only ones there so we didn’t feel rushed around like at most tastings. The staff was polite however they didn’t talk much about how the process of how they make their mead was done. We also didn’t get to walk around the grounds to check everything out. Again we were the only ones there so it was a very relaxed visit. In and out. The view was amazing. 70 degrees and clear. Would like to see it on a more «busy» day but no real complaints overall.

Excited for a meadery… my old college roommate used to make Mead and I don’t often find it elsewhere. Came with a group and with reservations we had a personal bartender and tasting area. 6 tastes for $ 5. You need to go in with the understanding that mead is honey.. therefore a sweet drink. Can’t compare to other wines

I love this place. I love mead. I’d you’re not a fan of fruit wines or honey mead, this place is not for you. If you are a fan, this place has the tastiest mead and fruit wine I’ve ever had and I have had a lot of mead. I get to the Finger Lakes once a year and this is place is a must. My three friends and I bought 4 ½ cases without batting an eyelash. Join the case club! It’s a great value. We saved well over $ 100.

Only one employee working on a Wednesday so I think the large group of pharmacists who arrived before us overwhelmed him.
We waited ten minutes for the group to finish up their tasting and another twenty minutes as the one employee rang up the group’s purchases.
With respect to the mead and cider, Earle Estates looks legit based on the many medals and awards (but every other winery we visited along Seneca had awards and medals displayed).
The ciders were good. Bf purchased a bottle (don’t remember which but we were told its the most popular one).

Ahh, what a great find! We stopped into the Torrey RIdge Winery next door to try the Redneck Wines and man am I glad that we walked around back to find this gem. I personally didn’t like mead that much the first time I tried it; I thought it was much too sweet. However, tastes change and I truly love the stuff now. Earle Estates Meadery is a great example of the deliciousness of mead. They have the classic mead, but they also have many fruit meads that are very, very good. They also have several hard apple ciders that were exceptional as well. This is truly a gem in the Finger Lakes and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes mead or who is willing to try something new!

THEY JUST ACCUSED MY FRIEND OF STEALING WINE! All because their employee didn’t bother to bag our purchase! Then said it was their job to question us. When we said that was rude they asked us to leave.

I had planned a wine tour for my friends and co workers, and this was the first stop on our list. I had only read reviews, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have tried mead before and really enjoyed it, which made me really excited to visit Earle Estates.
The building is beautiful and the workers were very helpful and knowledgeable about their mead, wine, and cider. We were very excited when we found out that they had just started making cider, and it had already won an award this past summer.
My favorite mead/​wine was called Raspberry Reflections which was a mixture of both raspberry wine and mead. The Blueberry mead was also worth trying.
Overall I had a great experience. We had a group of 14 and they were very helpful getting everyone’s individual choices and answering questions about what they were serving. I would definitely reccommend my friends to visit again. I am very happy that the local liquor and wine store sells their product.

Can’t speak to the quality of the mead/​cider, since we walked in and stood around for 20 minutes and no one bothered to greet us. One worker walked right past us and then stood at the register staring into space without so much as a hello. My husband said this is the 3^rd time he has walked out. It’s wonderful that your business is booming, but a little courtesy goes a long way. We will not be returning.

I like fruity wines but I will never go back here again for one reason the person pouring our wine made it miserable and couldn’t wait to leave. Plus even to sweet for me!

I’m a fan. I love mead. I also love that they had so many variety’s from dry to sweet. Great cider too.

I loved every wine I had here and bought 5 bottles to go. Fantastic hard cider, apple wine, strawberry wine, and apricot wine. I can’t wait to go back!

I have never been a huge fan of mead but their blackberry and cherry blended meads were fantastic!
The girl helping us (short, brown-​haired girl) was on the quiet side but never hesitated in answering a direct question.
My problem arose when the Jabba the Hutt like woman thought it would be appropriate to snap and berate our server in front of our party. Apparently our pourer had mixed up the cherry mead and the blackberry mead and that enraged Jabba enough to tell her (in front of customers) that it wasn’t that hard to pay attention to what she was doing so why couldn’t she figure it out?
What I couldn’t figure out was how Jabba could mix up the bright red cherry mead with the dark purple blackberry mead. I think SHE’s the one who should pay more attention.
Our girl just shrugged it off and didn’t let it affect her, but she did smile when we all told her that she was our favorite of the day and we all left a nice tip for her. Hopefully Jabba saw none of that tip money.

If you’re into fruit wines and meads, definitely go to Earle Estates. They had such a huge selection I had a hard time picking what to taste, and I was duly impressed with the offerings I chose.

Yummy wines! Excellent choice if you are looking for something out of the ordinary.

I will literally travel an hour out of my way to stop at this Meadery and pick up half a case until I can travel back again. If you are looking for DELICIOUS honey wine in amazing fruit flavors (blackberry and raspberry are my favs) you NEED to go to to Earle Estates! Plenty of parking and friendly staff!

This review is for the Earle Estates Meadery only, the building is also part of the Torrey Ridge Winery, but we didn’t visit there.
Though Earle Estates calls itself a Meadery, it has both meads, fruit wines, and numerous hybrids of the two.
There is plenty of parking, but surprisingly little counter space for such a large parking lot. Service also seemed strained, but we were there on a weekday, where there were only 2 servers and probably about 15 visitors.
Nothing about any of the wines or meads were explained to us.
There is a gift shop area featuring tons of kitch with humorous wine related quotes, but nothing meadery-​specific.
Taste-​wise, I was very disappointed. I have tried very few meads, notably the 2 made at Brotherhood Winery (one of which is the mead served at the NY State Renaissance Farie), and I was itching to try more. When I saw such an extensive list, I paid for multiple tastings to try them all.
Most of the pure meads, and many of the mead blends, tasted very good at first, but left an horrible aftertaste. I can’t even describe it, I have never tasted anything like it before. It was so bad, and occurred so randomly throughout the tastings (some of the blends I tasted were excellent), that I almost wonder if they had allowed some of the sample bottles to spoil somehow. I just can’t picture anyone buying these wines with such a vile aftertaste. Even the pear mead, an award winner, had this flavor – so I tend to think that the bottle had been allowed to spoil. I should have said something, perhaps, but I didn’t want to be rude.
I was very anxious to try the Honey Mead Semi-​Dry, as I had never had a semi-​dry mead before, but I was again disappointed with the aftertaste. If that taste hadn’t been there, it would have been excellent.
However, some of the bottles I tried were amazing. The Raspberry Reflection (30 rasp wine/​70 mead), The Crusin Cranberry (cranberry wine & mead), Autumn Harvest (30 pear/​30 rasp/​40 mead) and the Blackberry Blush (30 blackberry wine/​70 mead) were all simply wonderful. I especially would recommend the cranberry as a Thanksgiving wine. It is simultaneously sweet and tart, and very refreshing. With some trepidation considering what had happened with almost all the other meads and blends I tried, I did purchase a bottle of both the Blackberry Blush and the Crusin Cranberry. Hopefully these will taste like the samples I had.
All of the pure fruit wines I was able to taste (they were sold out of most) were very very good. They were less sweet than many fruit wines I have tried, and had no cloying element. I wish more of them had been available for sampling; but I was able to try the Apple Enchantment and the Peach Perfection.
The only grape wines I sampled at Earle Estates (I was here for the meads, after all) were the Niagra and the Diamond. They were good as very sweet desert wines, but not my favorite in that category.
All in all, if it hadn’t been for that aftertaste I would have given the wines and meads 5 stars, and service 2 stars.
Please note, they do offer a discount at 2 bottles, and they will refund the cost of one tasting per bottle purchased, which is nice.

If you’re taking a wine tour of the finger lakes or just passing by, stop in here if you want to enjoy some good meal (honey wine). My personal favorites were the cranberry and meal fusion and the Strawberry Shadow (70% honey meal and 30% strawberry wine).
It was an enjoyable break from the standard grape wine of the area.