Sky River Mead is an award-winning woman-owned meadery. We are proud to be among the older wineries in Washington State. Sky River Mead began in the rugged foothills of the Cascade Mountains in 1997 and debuted its first bottle in 1999. In 2012, Sky River Mead moved to Woodinville. Our tasting room has space for events, rotating local artist exhibits, and a patio area where you can enjoy a tipple of mead under the umbrellas on sunny days or the warmth of the fires on cooler days. Come experience the Nectar of the Gods at Sky River Mead. Sláinte!
From start to finish, Sky River Mead produces meads with some of the purest and greenest ingredients in the world today. While there are numerous organizations that certify grape wineries and vineyards as sustainable, there aren’t such certifications for meaderies. So, we thought we’d share our practices.
Perhaps most significantly, honey itself enjoys one of the smallest carbon footprints of any natural sweetener. Honey production remains so low tech that it employs simple manpower, not lumbering machines. Producing, and using honey is skill based, rather than machine dependent – learned and carried out by farmers in the simplest to most advance economies, and uses only a few feet of land per hive, rather than acres. Luckily, we live in a part of the world where we can draw beautiful honey from many local producers. Additionally, the presence of the honeybees actually increases the health and production of the surrounding land.
Our meads are fermented in small batches, year-round. This allows us to function without huge inventories of barrels and equipment which sit idle most of the year.
Originally, we used flint glass from France. It was beautiful but with an eye on sustainability we recently switched to a local glass producer. Not only does the lighter weight local glass use less material to create it also shrinks the carbon foot print by eliminating the need to ship glass from overseas. The glass now only travels a short distance to the winery. Our boxes and labels are also produced locally for much the same reasons.
Everything that can be reasonably recycled at Sky River Mead is recycled, reused or re-purposed; glass, paper, cardboard, pallets, batteries, barrels and fluorescent bulbs are recycled. Pallets from glass become pallets of finished wine, barrels are reused or reborn as planters or furniture, and most exciting, cardboard is repurposed as everything from a cushion between pallets, to shipping containers for our father who makes toy cars for children’s charities.
Our new location at The Junction in Woodinville is a smaller, more efficient version of our previous tasting room. Still plenty of space to taste, socialize and enjoy but away from all the construction and unbridled growth surrounding our previous location. We have plenty of on-site parking, so no need to circle around to find a spot for your car. The Junction features mead, of course, and after that there are spirits, wines, and cider waiting to be tasted.
Glenda Downs and Denice Ingalls are sisters who both came to mead-making almost by accident. Their circuitous routes took them through floristry and the tourism industry, baking, and microbrewing. Denice selects the honeys, works with the wines as they ferment, collaborates on packaging, oversees the mountains of paperwork, and enjoys working with customers and teaching them about mead. Glenda oversees sales and marketing, social media, the tasting room, label design, art direction, and this website.