Saving Wine

There have been a handful of times in my life when, shockingly, I've tried a wine that I just couldn't drink. I recall one such event while having a dinner party. David thought he would bargain shop for wine, and the results were disgusting. Three college kids (and one of our professors) continued to pour the bottle right down the drain.

Like I said, it's only happened a handful of times, but it has definitely happened. Another example is our first batch of homemade wine. Equally, if not more so, disgusting. It's drinkable, especially if you've burnt off your taste buds recently, but it's really not good.

So, we're stuck with about a case or so of really icky homemade Merlot. (It's a case b/c we gave a lot away. Suckers. :-D)

I hate seeing wine just sit there, so I had a thought. I wonder if it would taste better mulled. And ya know what, it does!

Yesterday, I decided to formally greet fall with mulled homemade wine.

I poured about a cup less (I'll get to that cup in a minute) of a bottle of this Merlot into a sauce pan along with some mulling spices that I picked up from the cheese store recently. I heated it on medium-low until it was warm enough to drink, not letting it get hot enough to boil, as then all the alcohol would disappear. And we surely don't want that.

Heating the wine with those mulling spices made the wine drinkable, and quite yummy! And this is exactly how I'll be using the rest of those bottles of wine.