Vino Navegado

the hot red wine of the Chilean south: a rough young País warmed with orange, sugar, and cinnamon and ladled into glasses against the rain of Valdivia and the winter of the Lake District

Origin: Chile

From the journey of Grapes.

Chile grows a great deal of ordinary wine as well as a great deal of good wine, and vino navegado is what the south of the country does with the ordinary sort when the temperature drops. The name means, literally, navigated wine, and the usual explanation is that the orange slices float about in the pot like little boats; a rival account holds that it came off the ships that worked the rainy Valdivian coast. Either way it belongs to the cold, wet, German-settled south, to Valdivia, Osorno, and the Lake District, where it is sold by the glass from steaming pots at every winter fair and every fonda, and it appears again in September at the ramadas of the national holiday, when the weather in the south is still against everybody. It is not mulled wine in the northern European sense: there are no cloves, no star anise, no brandy, and no long list of spices. There is red wine, sugar, orange, and usually a stick of cinnamon, warmed together and served very hot with the fruit left floating in the glass. The wine to use is emphatically not a good one, and Chileans are cheerfully explicit about this; the drink was invented for the young País sold by the jug, and a bottle worth drinking cold is wasted in the pot.

Ingredients

750 ml young red wine, rough and inexpensive (País, Carignan, or a simple Merlot)
3 whole oranges, 2 sliced into rounds and 1 juiced
100 g caster or soft brown sugar, or to taste
1 whole cinnamon stick
200 ml water (optional, to lengthen)

Method

Put the wine, the orange juice, the sugar, and the cinnamon stick into a wide pan, adding the water if you prefer a longer, milder drink.
Warm over a low heat, stirring, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Do not allow it to boil at any point.
Add the orange rounds and hold the pan at a bare steam for 10 minutes, so the peel oil comes out into the wine.
Taste and adjust for sweetness, then ladle into heatproof glasses or small mugs, giving each one a slice or two of hot orange.
Serve very hot, with the cinnamon stick moved from glass to glass or left in the pot for the next round.

Notes

Use a genuinely cheap young wine; this is the one occasion on which good Chilean Carménère or Cabernet would be a waste, and the drink was built around the rough País sold by the jug in the south. Some households add a few cloves or a slice of lemon, and a splash of aguardiente or pisco is not unknown at a cold fair, but the classic version is wine, sugar, orange, and cinnamon and nothing else. The same pot without alcohol, made with grape juice in place of the wine, is given to children at the September ramadas. Vino navegado is the direct southern cousin of the chicha de uva drunk further north at the same holiday, and the two are often on the same table.

The Gastrographer

Name: Vino Navegado
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Chile
Ingredients: 750 ml young red wine, rough and inexpensive (País, Carignan, or a simple Merlot); 3 whole oranges, 2 sliced into rounds and 1 juiced; 100 g caster or soft brown sugar, or to taste; 1 whole cinnamon stick; 200 ml water (optional, to lengthen)

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control