A Ceredigion honey farm is celebrating after winning a top regional accolade in the Great Taste Golden Fork awards.

From the 10 Welsh products that received the top honour of three gold stars in the Great Taste awards 2019, the Golden Fork from Wales was awarded to Afon Mêl, New Quay Honey Farm for their Welsh Heather Mead.

Afon Mêl is a traditional family-run honey farm based in New Quay, which was established in 1995 and was inspired by the family’s love and passion for beekeeping.

This year, Afon Mêl is also celebrating 20 years of making mead.

The honey farm is home to over 500 beehives and produces a selection of 100 per cent natural and raw honeys and boasts a range of distinctive characters of mead, each with their own unique flavours.

Afon Mêl’s Heather Mead is fermented using heather honey and has a rich, luxurious almost smoky taste of heather.

It’s very distinctive flavour is much sought after; it’s certainly the mead with the most characteristic flavour of honey, they say.

Described by Great Taste judges as “really impressive”, has a “clean appearance and lovely rich smoky aroma”.

“Smooth and easy to drink with lovely honey tones”, this mead is “crisp, balanced and rounded with an almost sherry-like dryness on the finish” making it the ideal partner with cheese.

Commenting on their achievements, owner Sam Cooper said: “We decided to enter this year as we’re celebrating 20 years of mead-making. We’re over the moon to win two Great Taste awards: a 3-star for our Heather Mead and a 1-star for our Medium Honey Mead. This has added such value to our business.”

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