Winter warmer: Spicy mulled wine
A looming winter storm over much of the eastern U.S. raises a question I wouldn’t usually ask: What if we made a warming winter drink out of red wine?
Such a question might horrify the traditional wine snob, but for the rest of us, it feels like a reasonable way to take the edge off deep snow, howling winds, and plunging temperatures.
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Check your local search engine, and you’ll find a virtual library of recipes for winter wine drinks, many of them requiring access to a bartender’s selection of aperitifs, vermouths, bitters, fruits, spices, honey, maple syrup, and maybe even dark chocolate. Red wine hot chocolate? I don’t think so.
Still, the idea of pivoting from simple red wine at cellar temperature to something more warming does have its appeal in the bleak midwinter. Doubly so during a historic storm. This may be the ideal time to experiment with a spicy, fruity glass of hot mulled wine.
I couldn’t resist. Looking at the forecast and thinking about mulled wine, I had to try it with the remains of this week’s featured wine from Vaucluse.
“Mulled,” not a verb one hears every day, goes back to the 1600s and may have come into English from the Dutch. It may be related to “milled,” and it means, simply, a heated and spiced drink. The Germans, with a bit more imagination, call their similar drink “Glühwein,” or wine that glows … or, perhaps, makes you glow. This genre also includes wassail, a cider-based drink familiar in holiday tradition; the Scandinavian glögg, and many more.
For lots more on mulled wine and its construction, I’ll refer you to an excellent practical and historical summary, The Warming History of Spiced Wine: From Ancient Feasts to Modern Holiday Cheer, from Empire Wine, an excellent retail shop in Albany, N.Y., a place that likely knows a thing or two about cold and snow.
You’ll find plenty of mulled wine recipes on the internet, but the basics are simple:
Pour a cup of red wine per serving into a saucepan. Use a good dry but fruity red that you enjoy, but there’s no need to waste a fancy treasure.
Add your choice of aromatic brown spices such as cloves, cinnamon stick, allspice, nutmeg, or star anise as you like. It’s best not to overdo.
Put in a couple of orange slices and a bit of brown sugar, maple syrup, or honey. Again, start with a small amount, and adjust sweetening to taste later if needed.
Some recipes suggest a splash of brandy or Grand Marnier, but in my opinion, that’s over the top.
Stir this mix and warm it gently to just short of a boil.
Strain out the spices, pour into warmed glasses or cups, and enjoy.
Cheers!
Substack Chat– Our thoughts go out to all in the path of this powerful winter storm.How would you feel about a hot, spicy red-wine drink?
This week’s featured wine from Provence, Famille Brunier 2023 Pigeoulet Vin de Pays du Vaucluse, is probably a bit too pricey for this treatment, although I’m looking at a smallish amount left in the bottle and rethinking that.
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