Mulled Wine - No Need for a Recipe

Saint Wenceslaus - Morgan Creek Vineyard

Tis the season for all the major food websites to break out their mulled wine recipes. Never heard of that style? Well, according to wiki:

Mulled wine (otherwise known as Glögg or Gløgg) is a beverage that ranges from alcoholic to non-alcoholic. It is usually made with red wine along with various spices and raisins, served hot or warm. It is a traditional drink during winter, especially around Christmas and Halloween.

Being lazy, out household takes the easy route and purchases mulled wine from local wineries - then fortify it with our favorite rum. Here's a few we have enjoyed in the past and some we are seeking this year (including the winery's tasting notes):

Burnley Vineyards (VA) - Spicy Rivanna ($12)
This is our Rivanna Red to which we have added cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, anise, orange peel, lemon peel and residual sugar. This wine is best served either well chilled or steaming hot like tea.

Brotherhood America's Oldest Winery (NY) - Holiday Spice Wine ($8)
The tradition of mulled wine in our country goes back to before the Revolution, when it was quaffed piping hot in taverns, inns and homes. Brotherhood’s Holiday Wine carries on this colonial tradition. Its moderate sweetness is balanced with tartness.

Rose Bank Winery (PA) - Mulled Apple
Like apple pie in a bottle. This wine starts with freshly pressed apple juice. After fermentation, it is sweetened to about 4% sugar (medium-sweet) and lightly flavored with our own custom blend of spices. Serve warm or cold.

Cream Ridge Winery (NJ) - Holiday Spice ($10)
This wine is made using a Niagra grape. We add spices so its great served cold straight from the bottle. However, serve it warm with our own Organic Mulling Spices and some fresh fruit and you can turn this into a warm Winter Sangria!

Tomasello Winery (NJ) - Mulled Spice Wine ($10)
Tomasello Mulled Spice Wine is made from a moderately sweet Native American grape, flavored with traditional mulling spices. Often served warm with a slice of orange and a cinnamon stick, this wine has been called the perfect "après-ski" wine. A popular style of wine in the outdoor street markets and ski slopes of Europe, our Mulled Spice Wine is great for the holidays or any other cold winter night when you’d rather stay in…

Chatham Hill Winery (NC) - Christmas Red ($15)
This semi-sweet red wine will warm you up when the weather turns chilly. Wonderful at room temperature, or chilled, or warm MULLED.

Duplin Winery (NC) - Christmas Wine ($10)
Start a new Christmas tradition with Duplin Winery's festive wine that is sure to warm the soul. Christmas Wine is a wonderful blend of North Carolina Muscadines and brings in the taste of a true Southern Christmas.


Wish List:

Morgan Creek Vineyard (MN) - Celebration Spice ($16)
Our signature Holiday wine! A favorite for fifteen years at Morgan Creek Vineyards and sells out within two weeks of its release every year. A lucious sweet red, rich body, touch of oak, and barrel aged. This Minnesota, French Hybbrid blend is a perfect wine to serve with a variety of main entrees; sweet beef, fruited pork, savory poultry, wild game are all wonderfully paired with this Winter Cycle libation. Even Good King Wenceslaus would serve this at his feast with Page or Monarch. . .

Ferrante Winery (OH) - Celebration Spice ($8)
A sweet festive grape wine spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. A mulled wine that can be enjoyed with a cinnamon stick or citrus fruits.

Easley Winery (IN) - Warm Mulled Wine
From the traditional German recipe comes Warm Mulled Wine, bursting with cinnamon, apple, honey, lemon juice, and spices from afar. Warm a glass and pair with creme brulee or other sweets.

Black Mesa Winery (NM) - Santa Fest ($15)
A mulled spice wine served chilled in the summer or hot in the winter. It's spices of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg will delight your pallet. Warm it for the holidays and the whole house will smell like Christmas.

Door Peninsula Winery (WI) - Mulled Christmas A softer, semi-sweet cherry wine blended with cinnamon, nutmeg and warm ground spices sure to foster fond family memories and cozy fires. Best served warm.

Boyden Valley Winery (VT) - Glogg Glogg is a mulled spice wine that is great served warm in a mug with dried fruits and almonds, or, even better, with any kind of pumpkin desserts or pecan pie. The Recipe came to us from one of those great characters who always seem to just emerge out of the Vermont landscape, our Swedish friend Taug.  Knowing something about cold winters, Taug shared this cozy secret with us, and we are sharing it with you. Glogg is a wonderful treat on holidays, or on any chilly night.

Cascade Mountain Winery (NY) - Heavenly Daze Our kitchen came up with this spice wine and we think it's a winner. Cinnamon, Lemon Zest, and Lemon Juice combined with red wine produce this rich spice wine - great as an after-dinner treat or mulled wine.

Cartecay Vineyards (GA) -  Chimney Noel
A seasonal nouveau Wine only available during the Holidays.  A light drinking sweet, wine with flavors of Berries and Christmas.

Update:

Tasted the Chaddsford Winery (PA) - Spiced Apple Wine ($13) last night. Not bad - will repeat by fortifying with rum. (Apple, cinnamon & spice, just like Ma's apple pie. Heat it up in winter for a soothing hot mulled wine.)

Also, ChiefWino recommended the Chateau Grand Traverse (MI) - Spiced Cherry Wine ($9).  For those on the East Coast this wine is available at Little Washington Winery (VA) through their Dirt Road program. (This wine is a holiday tradition. Made from our Traverse City Cherry Wine, we add natural flavors of cinnamon, clove, orange, and lemon peel. The resulting wine is a classic "Mulled" or "Gluhwein." Enjoy as a warm-up beverage or with soda water or ginger ale for a lighter taste.)

Burnley Vineyards

For the first time we finally took the time to visit one of the oldest vineyards and wineries in the Charlottesville area: Burnley Vineyards. The Reeder family harvested their first grapes in 1980 and sold them to other Virginia wineries until 1984. At that time they started their own farm winery. They have gradually expanded operations where they currently have 31 acres planted which produce close to 5,000 cases annually. Only 5% of their grapes come from elsewhere.

We had never previously tasted Burnley’s wines at the various state festivals, so this was a great opportunity to familiarize ourselves with their products. They started with the Barrel Fermented Chardonnay which was fermented in oak, then aged in oak for only 4 additional months – the result is a wine with subtle hints of oak – a very refreshing wine. Burnley also offers a stainless steel fermented Chardonnay that is dry – but fruitier. Of the two – I leaned towards the Barrel Fermented Chardonnay. The Rivanna White was next – a semi-dry Vidal Blanc – made in the Germanic style where unfermented grape juice is added to the wine to “enhance the fruit flavors and add natural sweetness to the wine”. I really liked this wine and at 1% r.s. – it’s a medium dry wine – your summer afternoon wine. Their Riesling was made in the similar method where the unfermented Riesling juices increases the residual sugar to 2%. The strong Riesling flavor is evident in this wine.

The first red wine served was the Rivanna Red a blend of 2003 Chambourcin, Norton and Cabernet Sauvignon. This is an excellent everyday table wine – made in the Beaujolais style – dry and fruity. Each grape variety contributes – Norton to the fruity flavor, the Chambourcin to the nose and texture, and the Cabernet to the slightly spicy finish. This is also a bargain at $11 a bottle. I next tried the only wine not made from Burnley Vineyard grapes, the 2006 Zinfandel – made from grapes grown in Amador County that were immediately processed on delivery. This is a very good Zinfandel – loads of plum flavors and the expected spicy finish. It is also a young wine that will improve with age. Their 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon is similarly dry – but heartier – a strong wine. It is also unfiltered and after having aged 5 years in the bottle – the finish is very smooth. This is another good red wine. The final dry, full-bodied red is their 2006 Norton. This wine is young and acidic – but contains the fruity Norton flavors. I would recommend letting this one sit a couple of years to mellow – a process the Reeder’s wish to do, except the wine sells too quickly as is. I’ll let you know in a few years how my bottles aged.

Burnley’s best selling wine is their Somerset, a sweet wine made with Chardonnay, Vidal Blanc, Riesling, Norton, Chambourcin and Cabernet Sauvignon. Quite the combination. Unfermented Vidal Blanc juice is added back to the wine after fermentation for sweetness and the Norton, Chambourcin and Cabernet Sauvignon provide plenty of color. The wine is a little too sweet for my tastes as an every day wine but I strongly recommend their Moon Mist a dessert wine made from Muscat Blanc and Orange Muscat. The wine has the floral aromas and flavors of the Muscat grape and at $12 is another bargain.

Burnley also produces a blush style wine, their Rivanna Sunset. This wine shows the versatility of the Chambourcin grape, which is normally made into a dry red wine, but here, the grapes are processed with no skin contact. This is a sweet blush – with more flavors than a standard White Zin, but just as sweet at 4% r.s.

The final two wines were their Peach Fuzz and Spicy Rivanna. The former is a blend of grape juice and peach juice that is cold fermented, cold filtered, and cold bottled. Serve chilled or as Lou Reeder suggested, mixed with Champagne. Our bottle lasted one night using that approach. The Spicy Rivanna is your Christmas wine, where the winery adds cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, anise, orange peel, lemon peel and residual sugar to the Rivanna Red. This wine can be served chilled, but is better served warm. This wine is also a string seller after the season as a visitor purchased a case during my visit.

In the future, we will make more of an effort to visit Burnley’s tasting tent at this year’s festival or visit the winery again during trips along route 29. The winery is only 6 miles of the highway – although be prepared for 6 miles of twisting road over several one lane bridges. The ride itself is almost worth the trip.