Mulled Wine

For my final project, I decided to brew a traditional mulled wine, using a recipe that has been followed since the Middle Ages and still gets used frequently today. This idea was one which I derived through various encounters with wine and other alcoholic beverages throughout medieval literature and media. One of the specific aspects of wine within the Middle Ages which drew me to create this project was the appearance it provided, this being in a social sense and not a physical one. The wines origin in Ancient Greece was one which came out of the fear of being wasteful, with them adding these spices to let over wine and heating it in order to preserve and not waste their valued beverage. However, moving into the 14th century, adding ingredients such as star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and honey to a yield of wine became a way of establishing social status and appearing of higher class. Although the historical recollections of mulled wine provided me with appropriate background information to create the wine itself, it was the fictitious representations of wine in medieval literature which fully pushed me to create the project. Wine is something that has remained heavily symbolic, being featured in texts as historical as even the bible, with it often being representative of wisdom, graciousness, and even deceit. I was blown away that something which was entirely inanimate could carry so much importance in a narrative sense, inspiring me to also create a short story based around mulled wine. Please see the attached pictures which showcase the brewing process necessary to create the wine I did.

Caleb McVeigh