Mulled Wine Recipe with Merlot

Did you try mulled wine at least once this winter?
If not, it might be a good idea to warm yourself with some of this comforting, flavourful drink to make the most of remaining winter days.

For starters, mulled wine is a warm (It’s served warm.), spicy (Notice, we are saying ‘spicy’, not hot.) red wine-based boozy beverage. From deep cloves and woody cinnamon to refreshing orange – it is enriched by ingredients from across the flavour spectrum, and that’s what makes this drink so interesting! Sometimes brandy may be added to give it more warmth and an additional kick. Not that you must, but we love sipping ours with some ooey gooey cheese fondue. The creaminess of fondue nicely complements the flavour profile of the mulled wine.

“Which wine should I use for mulled wine?”
It’s hard to argue that with its plenty of fruit characters, high alcohol percentage and generous tannins, Merlot isn’t the best for this preparation. These three requirements are also met by Grenache. The fruit flavours go well along with the spices used in mulled wine.
Ensure that you don’t use a delicate wine that gets overpowered by the spices.
Now that we know which wines should be used, we are sharing with you a basic mulled wine recipe. We suggest you follow the recipe as it is, once, and take the liberty of making any changes you desire, like a splash of brandy, from the next time…

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Mulled Wine Recipe

Course Drinks

Cuisine Australian

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 8 Peoplw

Author Just Wines

Ingredients

• 1 Bottle 750ml bottle dry red wine
• 1/4 Cup Honey or caster sugar/ superfine sugar
• 1 Orange Evenly cut into slices
• 1 Cinnamon stick
• 7 Cloves
• 1/2 Nutmeg
• 1 Star anise

Instructions

1. Grate the nutmeg into a large saucepan. Pour in the honey/ caster sugar, and add the cinnamon stick and the cloves. Now, just add enough wine for the sweetener to dissolve in. Place over a low heat.

2. Stir with a spatula until the honey/ superfine sugar dissolves. Once the sugar has dissolved (and hence there is no danger of it caramelising), increase the heat to medium and let the contents of the pan turn syrupy. We didn’t add all the wine in one go, which is unlike a vast majority of recipes over the internet. This is because cooking the wine for long results in a substantial amount of alcohol burning off.

3. Once the sweetener and wine in the pan have turned into a thick reduction, pour in the remainder of the wine. Gently stir with a spatula and add the orange slices, along with the star anise.

4. Continue to cook on gentle heat until the wine is warm. Then ladle into heatproof glasses and serve.