Savour your favourite mulled wine...

It’s the season of wine and when it is spiced like mulled wine, nothing beats the taste! Jalandhar-based hotelier Gautam Kapoor suggests that wine if concocted with spices like star anise, cinnamon and cloves, and blended with maple syrup or brandy, becomes more soothing. It is just like having a regular tea or a masala tea with all the traditional flavours!

“For a mulled wine, take an ordinary table wine. Not the Italian or the French wine. And while it is being spiced up, do not let it boil. There should be no bubbling and evaporation. The burner should be put off and the vessel covered or else the small alcohol amount in it will get evaporated,” he says.

Kapoor, who has done a course in wine rating from Bordeaux, France, adds, “I have toured across the wineries and vineyards along Garonne river, Loire Valley, Rhone region and Burgundy, and I have tasted a variety of wines. I have seen how in several European countries, wine is a part of their culture and is so very deep-rooted.”

At his place in Model Town, he has wine bottles stored at 16 degree centigrade. “That’s the ideal temperature at which the bottles have to be stored,” he says. “Wine bottles are stories in themselves. I write the names of people who have gifted me these and mention the date too. These bottles shall be opened for the same persons whenever we meet next,” he beams.

Wines become very expensive over a period of time and a collector is always at an advantage. “The market price of some of the bottles which are with me for the past 10 years would have increased 10 times to 200 times,” he informs.