By Magnus von Kageneck, cellar master (who he is) · Updated: September 2026
In December there are often bottles in the cellar that are too heavy for summer and too fruity for the Sunday roast: the blackberry wine from August, the last of the blueberry, the red wine from the grapes off your own vines. Those are exactly the ones that belong in the mulled wine pot. Not every wine is suited to it, and almost everything that can go wrong happens in the last few degrees before boiling.
What mulled wine actually is
In commerce it is precisely regulated. Under EU law, mulled wine (sold under the name “Glühwein”) is made only from wine, flavoured mainly with cinnamon and cloves, without added water and without spirits, with at least 7 % vol; it may be sweetened. For fruit mulled wine, made from blueberry or cherry wine for example, the German guidelines for wine-like beverages set the same ban on added water and a minimum of 5.5 % vol. For your own table these aren't rules, but they are a good yardstick: wine, spice, sweetness and little else.
Which wine belongs in the pot
The first rule is an uncomfortable one: the pot won't rescue a faulty wine. A vinegary taint and a reductive, rotten-egg stink smell no better warm than cold, and no clove covers up mousiness. What you don't want to drink cold, you don't heat up either (Recognising wine faults). Sound, fruity and not too astringent: that is all mulled wine asks for.
With red wine, what matters is how the colour got into the wine. In fermentation on the skins, juice, skins and seeds ferment together for about a week; the wine turns out dry and full-bodied, at around 12 % vol. Its tannin stays noticeable in mulled wine too, and the clove adds astringency of its own. So leave out the last, bitter press wine. In thermovinification, the crushed grapes are heated to 70 to 85 °C; the wine comes out dark and fruity, sometimes with a note of cooked fruit. In a wine glass that is a weakness; in mulled wine it fits. Both methods need fresh wine grapes, from your own vines or from a winegrower (Wine from garden grapes).
Fruit wines: dark, high in acid, often already sweet
Dark berry wines are the natural mulled wines. Blackberry wine from black cultivated varieties turns out dark and powerful, at about 13.5 % vol and 8 g/l acidity. Blueberry wine is deep red and aromatic, with 6 to 8 g/l acidity. Black currant wine brings the most acidity, at 9 to 11 g/l, and so much aroma of its own that a single cinnamon stick is often enough; red currant wine sits at 8 to 9 g/l and tastes fruity and tart. Elderberry and cherry wine belong to the same family (Elderberries after the first frost, Cherry wine through to Christmas).
The delicate wines are less suitable. Raspberry wine changes its aroma considerably while it is still fermenting; little of the fresh raspberry survives the heat. Strawberry wine is mild and often a bit bland; it can't hold its own against cinnamon and clove.
Two things set fruit wine apart from red wine. It is stronger: berry dessert wines are built for 13.5 to 14 % vol. And it is often already sweetened, rounded off after fermentation with 20 to 80 g of sugar per litre. If that is too heavy for you, mix it half and half with a lighter wine, such as a currant summer wine at around 8.5 % vol; together that comes to about 11 % vol. Hot apple wine with cinnamon and clove is lighter and needs little spice (Making apple wine at home).
Spices: whole, sparing and not for too long
For one litre, one cinnamon stick, three cloves, one star anise and the peel of half an untreated orange are enough, thinly pared, without the bitter white pith. If you like, add two lightly crushed cardamom pods or two slices of fresh ginger. Use whole spices, not ground ones: powder clouds the wine and settles as sediment in the mug. Cloves take over quickly, so better one too few than one too many. When it comes to cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon is worth it. The usual cassia cinnamon contains considerably more coumarin, and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) advises everyone who eats cinnamon often and in large amounts to choose the Ceylon variety.
There are two routes to the aroma. Warm: spices into the wine, lid on, let them steep for half an hour at about 70 °C, then take them out. If they stay in the pot for hours, the mulled wine turns harsh and the clove tastes like the dentist's office. Cold: spice the wine the day before in a bottle, leave it somewhere cool overnight and taste it; if it's too subtle for you, give it another day. Then strain it, and all that's left is to warm it up.
If you'd rather not steep whole spices, stir a mulled wine spice extract into the warm wine. 50 ml is enough for up to 10 litres, which is about 5 ml per litre; add it in small steps and taste as you go. The extract itself contains alcohol and therefore only goes into the wine pot. White mulled wine made from your own white wine takes less clove; lemon peel and a little vanilla suit it better.
Temperature: 70 to 75 °C, never boiling
Alcohol already boils at about 78 °C, long before the wine itself boils. If the pot gets hotter, alcohol escapes with the steam, and with it the delicate fruit aroma; sugar and spices then taste cooked, and the mulled wine goes flat. So heat it to 70 to 75 °C, on low heat with the lid on, and check with a kitchen thermometer. Without a thermometer, the rule is: it may steam, but it must never roll or throw up bubbles.
Use a pot made of stainless steel or undamaged enamel. The acid in wine dissolves metal out of aluminium, copper, brass, zinc and iron, which you can taste and which can cloud the wine. Don't keep it warm all evening: after hours on the stove, mulled wine loses alcohol and freshness, and the spices keep on steeping. Better to make a fresh litre twice. And ladle carefully: liquid at 75 °C scalds the skin, the pot belongs on a stable surface, and the ladle needs a long handle.
Sweetness: spice first, then sweeten, and adjust in the mug
How sweet a mulled wine needs to be depends above all on its acidity, because acid masks sugar. A red currant wine with 8 to 9 g/l takes considerably more sweetness than a mild blueberry wine, a dry red wine more than an already sweetened dessert wine. So you only sweeten once the spices have steeped, and you find the amount in the mug:
- Pour 0.25 l of the warm, spiced wine into a mug.
- For a dry wine, stir in 10 g of sugar, which corresponds to 40 g per litre. With a sweetened fruit wine, taste it first without sugar and then start with 5 g.
- Taste, add more in steps of 5 g and stop as soon as it tastes rounded to you.
- Scale up to the pot: 20 g in the mug means 80 g per litre.
With honey you need a little more, because it contains only about 80 % sugar: 25 g of honey sweetens like 20 g of sugar. Stir it in only once the pot is off the heat. How to sweeten in the cellar is explained in Stopping fermentation and sweetening wine.
Sugar dilutes the wine only slightly. 80 g of dissolved sugar takes up just under 50 ml in a litre; a wine at 13.5 % vol thus becomes one at around 12.9 % vol. The sweetness makes it seem weaker than it is.
Alcohol is still alcohol
At 70 to 75 °C with the lid on, most of the alcohol stays in the pot. A 0.25 l mug of sweetened blackberry wine at 12.9 % vol contains around 25 g of alcohol; one made from a red wine at 12 % vol, sweetened with 80 g per litre, about 22 g. Hot and sweet as it is, you taste little of it, but your body still gets all of it. Anyone who still has to drive drinks from the other pot.
The second pot: spiced juice without alcohol
If someone doesn't drink alcohol or still has to drive, a second pot of hot spiced juice stands alongside. This is a juice drink in its own right, not an alcohol-free mulled wine: its own pot, its own ladle, different mugs, so that nothing gets mixed up. Dealcoholised wine doesn't go in, as it may contain up to 0.5 % vol; the mulled wine extract stays out too.
The base is apple juice. A juice at 50 degrees Oechsle brings around 100 g of sugar per litre, so extra sugar is usually unnecessary. For colour and depth, stir in 30 to 50 ml of elderberry concentrate per litre, or replace part of the juice with currant juice. Pure black currant juice has 36 to 45 g/l acidity, so a small splash is enough. Spice it as above with cinnamon, two cloves and orange peel, and likewise heat it only to about 75 °C, so the juice doesn't taste cooked.
For next winter
If you want to plan your mulled wine, start dark berries fermenting on the pulp in summer, with a strong red wine yeast such as the Bordeaux red wine yeast; which yeast suits which fruit is covered in the yeast compass. Fill a few bottles with dry wine, but only once the Oechsle hydrometer shows the same reading below zero twice, and sweeten only at the pot; a fully fermented, unsweetened wine hardly ferments any further in the bottle. The red wine booklet and the other booklets are under Guides.
The mulled wine rule
Sound wine, whole spices, 70 to 75 °C with the lid on, sweetness last and found in the mug. And a second pot as soon as not everyone at the table drinks wine.
Magnus von Kageneck is Maischewerk's cellar master character. The texts in this series are written with the support of artificial intelligence and are checked for technical accuracy before publication.
Related in the shop: Making Wine and Wine & Pure-Culture Yeasts