Pear Mulled Wine with the Thermomix® comes down to one number: 80°C. Go higher and you lose the alcohol to the air and the pear to the heat. We warm it gently, steep it slowly, and the wine stays wine.
We have been making our pear mulled wine for years on every Advent evening when red mulled wine feels too heavy and too sweet. The idea is straightforward: dry white wine as the base, fresh pears instead of berries, and a quartet of ginger, cinnamon, star anise, and cardamom as the spice framework. The result is lighter, fruitier, and far more easy-drinking than the classic red version. Anyone who has tried white mulled wine with pear rarely goes back to red.
Pear Mulled Wine with the Thermomix®
Ingredients 0 / 8 ✓
- 300 g pears
- 1000 g dry white wine
- 100 g orange juice
- 300 g pear juice
- 2 cloves
- 2 pinches ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 100 g soft brown sugar
Instructions 0 / 4
-
1
Chop the pears.
Peel the pears, quarter them, remove the cores, add them to the mixing bowl and chop for 4 seconds / speed 4.
-
2
Heat the mulled wine.
Add the remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl and heat for 10 minutes / 70°C / speed 1.
-
3
Blend the mulled wine.
Blend the contents of the mixing bowl by gradually increasing to speed 8, leave to steep for 15 minutes, then heat again for 5 minutes / 70°C / speed 2.
-
4
Strain and serve, or bottle.
Pour the mulled wine through a fine sieve or coffee filter and serve immediately. Alternatively, fill into sterilised bottles and seal. Once cooled, store in the fridge and warm gently before serving. Do not boil!
Video
Nutrition per serving
Why 80°C is the hard limit
Alcohol evaporates from 78°C upwards. That does not mean everything stays in the cup at 79°C and disappears at 81°C. But the longer the wine sits above 80°C, the more alcohol goes into the kitchen air rather than into the glass. And with the alcohol go the delicate fruit esters of the pear. What remains is a sweet, spiced broth that tastes like tea, not mulled wine.
That is exactly why we work with two temperature phases here: 10 minutes at 70°C on speed 1, leave to steep, then another 5 minutes at 70°C on speed 2. We stay deliberately below 80°C, because the display on the mixing bowl shows a lower threshold, not an average. Set to 70°C, the actual temperature hovers around 75°C. That is precisely right for mulled wine that should still taste like mulled wine.
If you reheat the wine later (from a bottle, for example), the same rule applies: do not boil, do not simmer, only warm. Better to reheat briefly twice than to leave it too long once.
The pear as the main ingredient, not a garnish
In many recipes, a few pear slices end up as decoration in the glass, while the actual wine remains classic mulled wine. We do it differently. 300 g of pears are peeled, quartered, cored, and chopped in the mixing bowl for 4 seconds at speed 4. Only then does the wine go in. This way the pear pulp releases its full aroma into the wine as it heats, not just subtle pear hints.
Ripeness matters: firm, slightly over-ripe pears are ideal. Williams pear tastes the most intense, Conference is the sturdier alternative when Williams are not on the shelf. Hard, pale green pears from the supermarket will not do. They give neither sweetness nor aroma, and the mulled wine turns watery.
If you prefer a stronger flavour, leave the skin on. This makes the mulled wine more tannic and deeper in taste, but leaves fine pieces of skin that we strain out at the end through a sieve. We usually peel them, because the texture is silkier and the pear flavour comes through more clearly.
The spice quartet: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, plus one more
The recipe uses 2 pinches of ground cinnamon, 2 cloves, and 1 pinch of nutmeg. That is the foundation. If you want a really rounded mulled wine, add one star anise flower or half a cardamom pod (crushed, not ground). These two make the difference between a pleasant pear drink and a mulled wine that tastes like a Christmas market.
Fresh ginger (a pea-sized slice, peeled) is our second secret weapon. It adds a warming heat that suits pear the way honey suits tea. The ginger goes in with the pears in the first blending step, so it is finely distributed and does not need fishing out later.
A word on cinnamon: Cassia cinnamon (the cheap kind from the supermarket) contains coumarin and has a sharp, slightly bitter taste. For mulled wine we use Ceylon cinnamon. It is milder, sweeter, and kinder in the quantity that ends up in a cup of mulled wine. At two pinches per 1.4 litres the coumarin question is relaxed, but once children join the table with an alcohol-free version (more on that below), the difference becomes important.
Which white wine to use
Dry is essential. A medium or sweet wine combined with the brown sugar and pear juice in this recipe produces a mulled wine that becomes cloying. We reach for Riesling (classic, lightly acidic, balances the sweetness), Silvaner (mild, understated, lets the pear lead), or a dry Pinot Gris (a little fuller, good for cold evenings).
What does not work: Sauvignon Blanc (too grassy, fights the pear), oaked Chardonnay (too buttery, kills the freshness), dessert wines such as Beerenauslese or Gewurztraminer (turn the mulled wine into a sugar bomb). A simple wine at 5 to 7 euros is perfectly fine. The expensive Riesling belongs in the glass, not in the pot.
What can go wrong (and how we avoid it)
The mulled wine turns cloudy and tastes floury
Cause: too much pear relative to the wine, or the pears were blended too finely. We stick to 4 seconds at speed 4. That gives coarse pieces that release their aroma without turning to mush. Our fix: Pour through a fine sieve or coffee filter before serving. The mulled wine comes out clear and the pear aroma stays in.
The mulled wine tastes flat
Cause: too long above 80°C, alcohol and aromas have cooked off. This happens most often when the mulled wine is left sitting on a warm hotplate after heating. Our fix: Transfer the mulled wine directly after the second heating into a thermos flask or fill into sterilised bottles. When serving, warm individual cups rather than keeping the whole pot hot.
The mulled wine is too sweet
Cause: 100 g of brown sugar plus ripe pears plus pear juice all add up. If the pears were very ripe, the sugar level can easily be too high. Our fix: Start with 70 g of brown sugar the first time, taste at the end, and sweeten further if needed. Honey (1 tbsp) instead of sugar works well too and adds an extra layer of aroma.
Variations we like
With apple instead of pear: 200 g pear and 100 g apple (Boskoop or Elstar) give a more tart, classic note. Tastes more of childhood, less of elegance.
Alcohol-free for children and pregnant women: Swap the white wine for 700 g clear apple juice and 300 g white grape juice, keep everything else the same. Just as aromatic, without the alcohol. We call it our pear punch.
With a splash of spirits: Stir in 30 g Williams pear schnapps after heating. Makes the mulled wine more grown-up and doubles down on the pear fruit. Be careful serving this at Advent gatherings, it tastes more innocent than it is.
With vanilla pod: Split half a pod, scrape out the seeds, and add both to the mixing bowl with the other spices. Makes the mulled wine feel creamy on the palate, without a drop of cream involved.
Bottling and keeping it longer
If you are not drinking the mulled wine straight away, fill it into sterilised bottles. We boil the bottles for 10 minutes in a pot first, seal them immediately while hot, and place them in the fridge once cooled. The pear mulled wine keeps for two weeks this way without losing any aroma. When reheating, the 80°C rule applies again: warm it slowly rather than letting it get too hot once.
Without sterilising, it keeps four days in the fridge. After that the wine loses the delicate pear note and becomes flat. Freezing does not work with mulled wine: the alcohol content is too low for clean ice crystals, and after thawing the aroma and freshness are gone.
What else we make to go with mulled wine
One mulled wine is rarely enough at an Advent gathering. Our Blueberry Mulled Wine with the Thermomix® covers the berry version and the alcohol-free option for children. Anyone who wants a small digestif after the mulled wine will enjoy our Thermomix® Advocaat: creamy, stirred to 70°C, and following the same temperature logic as this recipe.
Why fresh pear beats pear juice or nectar
Most pear mulled wine recipes reach for pear juice or pear nectar from a carton. Convenient, but a flavour compromise: juice brings sweetness, little aroma, and the mulled wine quickly becomes cloying. We use 300 g of fresh Williams pears, blend them briefly in the mixing bowl, and let the fruit pulp steep. The wine picks up the full pear character: esters, acidity, and fine texture, not just sweet water. We strain off the pulp at the end, and what remains is a clear, distinctly pear-forward mulled wine. The extra effort is three minutes of peeling; the gain in flavour is enormous.
Goes well with: cinnamon stars, gingerbread, and stollen.
