Mulled rosé wine

I love the spiced hot wine typical from Northern and Central Europe, mulled wine, glühwein, whatever... Two of my in-laws live in a nearby street and they have a German neighbor. I remember a copious snowfall, some five years ago, that covered all the village streets in white. It happened on the weekend, so we immediately went out on the street with the kids for a nice stroll on the new snow. This German guy didn't think twice and he went out on the street offering German stollen and some glühwein to celebrate the snow with his neighbors... he was chatting with my in-laws, so we were lucky to be invited. That's exactly the perfect way to taste glühwein...


This time I've bottled some spiced wine in cute bottles for Christmas gifting. For a more transparent and appealing look I've used rosé wine, even though the tradition calls for red wine... I hope the Germans aren't offended, sometimes I'm very disrespectful regarding traditions... I've also made it sugar-free, to help relieve the richness of the Christmas fare.



Mulled wine or glühwein
Yields 3 half a liter bottles

• 2 bottles of good rosé wine (but not excellent!)
• 2 sticks cinammon
• 1 vanilla pod
  
• 4 whole cloves
  
• 4 allspice grains
  
• 4 tbsp agave syrup (7 or 8 tbsp sugar, though the sweetening depends on the type of wine and personal taste)
  
• 2 tbsp ginger syrup (optional, just if you happen to have it handy, otherwise add another tbsp agave)
  

About the ginger syrup, I had some leftover from candying ginger, so I used it.

Put all the ingredients in an enameled pot and heat the whole thing up, but don't bring it to a boil. Just leave it to infuse. As we were not going to drink it straight away, I left it to rest overnight, for all the flavors to develop.



The day after filter the wine (I used a paper percolator coffee filter) and transfer to bottles. You can add some spices to the bottles. I added some allspice which I thought would look good at the bottom of the bottles... but it floated, damn. Give the bottles to your loved ones and advise them to serve it hot.

Mmmm, how I long for the snow now...