VIVA LA VITA

Brilliant, simple, and absolutely delicious mulled wine, by Jamie Oliver.

I make it every year and it never failed to impress, try it!

Mulled Wine Recipe

What you need:

• 2 clementines
• 1 lemon
• 1 lime
• 200 g caster sugar
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 3 fresh bay leaves
• 1 whole nutmeg , for grating
• 1 vanilla pod , halved lengthways
• 2 star anise
• 2 bottles Chianti or other Italian red wine

Peel your fruits first – clementines, limes and oranges. Put sugar in the pot on low heat and add the grating from the fruits plus the juice from clementines. Add the cloves, bay leaves, and about 10 gratings of nutmeg. At last, throw in the whole halved vanilla stick and add enough wine to cover up the sugar. Slowly simmer until the sugar completely dissolves.

Bring the liquid to boil and keep on boiling for 4-5 minutes until it creates a syrup consistency.  

This step is quite important because you’re creating a base of flavors to use for your wine. If you would just pour in both bottles of wine at this point, you would simply burn off the alcohol.

When the syrup is ready, add the star anise (I prefer to add it in earlier for more flavor) and your bottles of wine, keep mixing it for about 5 minutes on low heat until it’s nice and warm.

Make sure you double up on the recipe if you’re making it for 3 and more people, it goes down surprisingly quickly!

Enjoy!

PS: apologies for low-quality photos, it was shot in challenging light condition. I might have been also tasting wine for some time.