There's a smell that means the ski day is over - orange peel and warm spice drifting through the chalet, board games out on the table, the fire going. This is vin chaud, and in Méribel it starts with a wine and a liqueur you won't find in most mulled wine recipes: Mondeuse and génépi, both grown and distilled just down the valley.
Most vin chaud recipes call for "a fruity red wine" - Merlot, Pinot Noir, whatever's open. In Savoie, it starts with Mondeuse: a dark, peppery red grape grown in the valleys below Méribel, rarely exported and almost never found outside the region. It's the wine Savoie families reach for on afternoons exactly like this.
The other local addition is génépi - a wild Alpine herbal liqueur distilled from flowers picked high in the mountains each summer. Most families in the valley still make their own, following recipes passed down for generations. Traditionally, a spoonful of génépi-soaked raisins gets stirred through the wine at the end. It's a small addition, but it's the one detail that separates a Savoie vin chaud from every other version.
Serves 6 | Prep: 20 minutes | Cook: 15 minutes
Ingredients
Method
Mondeuse rarely appears outside the region, so look for it in a Savoie wine shop rather than a supermarket before you travel. If a bottle isn't available, any dark, peppery red - a Gamay or young Syrah - will get you close, though the flavour won't be quite the same.
