Dark Mofo was a lot of fun and it was so lovely so see so many of you who made it into the shed to say g’day and sample our wares. Our mulled rosé really hit the spot for those who tried it and I have had quite a few requests for a recipe on the mulled wine. I have put together the elements that I used to create this tasty winter warmer and converted it down from the event batch size I used!
Ingredients
2 bottles of Quiet Mutiny rosé
150g sugar
peel and juice of 2 oranges
peel of 1 lemon
4 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
a pinch or two of nutmeg (I use a whole nutmeg and grate a little bit in)
1 or half a vanilla pod (a dash of vanilla essence)
1 star anise (or a few lobes if you like a lower level of star anise)
6 to 8 Tasmanian pepper berries (freeze dried ones work really well)
200mL cranberry juice
Method
The four basic elements to get in balance for a tasty mulled wine are wine, sugar, spice & peel and juice. The wine I used was our deliciously tasty 2021 Quiet Mutiny Rosé because it has great fruits, flavour and colour. To make your sugar syrup, add the sugar to a saucepan, adding just enough wine to cover the sugar then heat to dissolve the sugar.
From here I prefer to remove the sugar syrup from the pan and add back to taste once the wine is added to avoid over sweetening, alternatively leave it in the pan as you can always add more wine if the sweetness is not to your taste!
Add the wine to the pan and set to gentle warming. Add sugar syrup to taste if you removed it in the above step. Now add the spices and peel, I prefer to add them all in a mesh spice bag so they can be removed when sufficient infusion has occurred. Add the orange juice and cranberry juice to taste, depending on the wine you used, one might work better than the other.
Gently warm all the components and serve. If you are keeping the pot warm for second serves, make sure the temperature stays low so you don’t burn off the alcohol.
Two things to remember
- Less is More: don't overdo the spices or you overpower the wine
- Warm not Hot: boiling the wine will remove any lovely aromas, and volatise the alcohol leading to an overpowering, heady aroma.