Navegado (Chilean Mulled Wine)

Few things get you in the festive mood faster than a mug of hot, spiced red wine. When it’s bitter cold outside, wrapping your hands around a warm cup is just the comfort your soul needs. Navegado is the Chilean version of mulled wine. With a varied climate and perfect terrain for growing wine grapes, Chile has been home to a wine drinking culture since the 1500’s. It’s only natural that navegado would become the festive winter drink of choice. 

A little bit of sugar tames the tannins in the wine so the drink goes down easily. The most common spices are cinnamon and cloves but feel free to add other whole spices. Here, some additional star anise reflects the spicy fruitiness of the red wine. Besides sugar and spices, navegado always has orange slices. A literal translation of navegado is “sailed” or “out to sea” and the orange slices are meant to represent boats bobbing along in the water. 

For a more intense flavor, make your navegado a day ahead for the spices to fully infuse the wine. Simply bring it back to a gentle simmer before serving. 

Many cultures around the world have warm spiced wine drinks and Navegado is simply the Chilean version. Navegado is made with Chilean wine (of course!) and besides spices it almost always has orange slices that are meant to represent ships out at sea. 

Honor the origins of navegado by using a Chilean wine. With a long wine-growing (and drinking!) history and varied landscape, Chile has many delicious wines to offer. Try something a bit drier to offset the additional sugar in the recipe. Any of these varieties will work well:

• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Merlot
• Syrah

Since you’ll be using whole spices to infuse your drink, these will become the natural garnish to feature. The most common spices to use for navegado are cloves and cinnamon. The non-negotiable garnishes for navegado are big, bright slices of orange.