The perfect mulled wine – Hungarian recipes

Mulled wine is the perfect choice for cold winter nights, whether by yourself with a good book or movie, or with friends.

The classic recipe does not require more than a bottle of wine, some water, a few tablespoons of sugar, a tablespoon of cloves, a teaspoon of ginger, some bars of cinnamon, and some oranges, lemons, and limes.

For a more flavourful glass of mulled wine, red wine is recommended, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, or merlot, for example.

Villány offers excellent cabernet sauvignon, but Balatonboglár, Sopron, Eger, and others have great options as well. Again, Villány has an amazing palette of cabernet franc as well, but so do Badacsony or Szekszárd. Villány (26), Szekszárd (19), Eger (14), and Balatonboglár (12) have the widest range of merlot to offer.

In a 2016 taste test, Dívány recommended using a wine made of blaufränkisch grapes, called Másfél.

For those who would like a lighter beverage, white wine should be perfect, such as traminite, greyhound, or Riesling.

Wine of better quality is suggested to be used, but not the most expensive one can find.

There are multiple ways to make mulled wine. The simplest, classic one is to put some water on a slow fire and add 3-4 tablespoons of sugar, about a tablespoon of cloves, 1-2 bars of cinnamon, and a bit of ginger if desired. Cook these together. Then add the wine of your choice and a half / a whole lemon’s juice. Some put orange, lemon, and lime slices straight into the water, some add them after the wine. We leave it on the stove over a slow fire until everything is heated up but before it starts boiling as that would lead to the alcohol evaporating.

For a white wine version: follow the same process, heat everything up, but do not let it reach boiling point. Put seven tablespoons of honey, a bar of cinnamon, your preferred number of cloves, a tablespoon of ginger, lemon juice, and lemon slices into some water. After heating it all up, add the wine and let it sit on the stove, but turn off before boiling.

For an alcohol-free choice: make some tea – green tea, rosehip, lemon, or all three –, add cloves, a bar of cinnamon, some fresh lemon and orange juice as well as the fruit slices.