Vinho Quente

The story

Vinho quente simply means “hot wine,” and in Portugal the name covers more than one drink. Its true Christmas home is the Minho, in the country's green northwest, where vinho quente belongs to the Christmas Eve supper, the consoada: there the wine, typically the local red vinho verde, is heated with honey and cinnamon and sipped very hot from teacups while the family waits for Midnight Mass, and a recipe recorded in Vila do Conde thickens the wine with egg yolks and sugar, finishes it with port, and serves it over small pieces of bread, to be eaten with a spoon. The recipe here is not that old northern drink but a simple modern mulled wine of the kind now made across Europe—red wine, orange, cinnamon, and cloves—given a Portuguese accent with a measure of port, the country's fortified dessert wine, for extra depth and sweetness. It comes together quickly—it is enough to heat the wine gently with the spices, never letting it boil, so that the alcohol and aroma are not lost. For Portuguese families in the diaspora, a pot of hot wine is one of the simplest ways to turn a gathering at home into something more festive, with minimal effort and ingredients that are always at hand.