Mulled Wine, or, the Secret to Surviving Christmas Markets

/ December 3, 2014

No German Christmas market is complete without mulled wine, or Glühwein, ‘glow wine’, as we call it, as it warms you up instantly in usually freezing temperatures. German Christmas markets are amazing – often set against the backdrop of beautiful buildings, they offer food, crafts, gifts and traditional Christmas decorations.

Stuttgart Christmas Market

Stuttgart Christmas Market, photograph by Stuttgart Marketing

In Stuttgart, my hometown, the Christmas market takes place in between two castles, a church and a palace, which makes an otherwise rather bland city centre look incredibly glamorous. In Aachen, where I studied, the market takes place right between the historic city hall and the impressive Dom – the very cathedral in which Charlemagne was buried in 814 AD. You can’t get much more atmosphere than that! If you can’t get to Germany this winter, you can always recreate that Christmas market feeling by making some mulled wine – it’s incredibly simple but delicious and I promise you that you’ll never buy any of that ready-made stuff again! Gluehwein

Mulled Wine – Glühwein (makes 1 litre)

  • juice and peel of 1 unwaxed orange.
  • 1 bottle of red wine – not too cheap, to avoid the traditional morning-after-visiting-a-Christmas-market-feeling
  • 6 cloves
  • 4 star aniseed
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 4 green cardamom pods
  • 4 tbs sugar

In a medium-sized casserole, warm up the wine with the sugar, the orange juice and the spices. Once it has reached a moderately hot temperature, leave it for around 15 minutes. Simply adjust the sugar to suit your taste and serve. To get the proper Christmas market experience, enjoy it with a few friends standing in a tight corner of your garden, in the freezing cold, with different Christmas songs playing simultaneously and – ideally – a couple of sausages sizzling away on a bbq nearby!

aachen_christmas_market_4

Aachen Christmas market, beside the famous Dom church. Photograph Germany Christmas Markets

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26 thoughts on “Mulled Wine, or, the Secret to Surviving Christmas Markets”

  1. Lovely. I love mulled wine, and drinking it in such a special context is just wonderful, it really adds to the magic atmosphere of these markets. We have a few Christmas markets in France, but I find them a bit fake. I hear the one in Strasbourg is very nice, but it is so close to Germany, it might be worth just crossing the border and visiting a German market!

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  2. I would never have thought to add cardamom! Genius 🙂

    Having just been in Strasbourg and visited the Christmas markets, I can totally recommend them – but they’re quite different from the German ones I’ve visited… And French spiced wine is not quite the same as Glühwein, but still very delicious!

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  4. I love Christmas markets. When I used to live in Frankfurt, we would go after work to drink some mulled wine and browse around the various stalls. That’s actually the only time I drink mulled wine as I usually find it a bit too sweet, but mulled wine and Christmas market just belong together!

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  6. I’m going to earn some minus points here, but I’m really not a huge fan of mulled wine. It’s Hugh Laurie’s fault, I watched him doing a sketch about how bad it was on A Bit of Fry and Laurie long, long, long before I ever got to try it, and I’m afraid he totally influenced my experience of it! (I’ve had a crush on him since I was 1993 😉 ) However… I do absolutely love mulled cider – we even had it at our wedding. I think I just find mulled wine a bit too sweet…

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    • I love Hugh Laurie, but I love mulled wine more! Mulled cider is a good alternative, though:-) We had Feuerzangenbowle at the weekend, and I am going to post that some day soon (once the effect has worn off 😉

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  9. Ginger, Thank you for sharing your Christmas traditions with us. I am keeping this recipe very much in mind as Christmas draws near. I enjoy “Gluhwein” very much but have not had it recently. I tried it when I visited Germany years ago during the holidays. I always long to travel to Germany again, such a beautiful country with very friendly and gracious people.

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  11. I miss the Christmas markets in German speaking countries (I remember them vividly from when I studied in Vienna, those warm, glowing night markets against the stark grandeur of the city.) Christmas markets have just started becoming a thing in big cities here in North America, but they’re not the same, they’re much more commercial (more like BUY CHRISTMAS GIFTS fair.) I will just have to sip your gluehwein at home… or as you suggested, make gluehwein and then take my boyfriend out into the snowy garden. 🙂

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  12. ja was, aus Stuttgart…. da bin ich auch aufgewachsen.
    Letzte Wochenende in Maulbronn gabs ebenfalls wunderbaren Glühwein, wir waren angenehm überrascht. Und wer weiß, vielleicht mach ich doch mal wieder selber einen.

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