Many of the mulled wines we worked our way through essentially tasted like hot spicy Ribena, with no hint that the liquid might actually be made from fermented grapes. With Sainsbury’s’, you could actually taste the wine, which balanced well with the citrusy, clove-heavy flavour.

This stuff is the real deal; proper spices, richly flavoured German wine and an unashamedly festive label. It also comes in a litre bottle, too, so you get plenty of festive cheer for your money. At 9% ABV it’s a little weaker than the other mulled wines we tasted, but that just means you can drink more before you start to feel too merry.

First impressions of this bottle aren’t that promising – the understated label and simple description suggest this is a pretty middle-of-the-road bottle. But of course, none of that matters so long as it tastes good (you shouldn’t be drinking it from the bottle anyway), which this certainly does. It actually tastes like wine – something many of the bottles we tasted failed to manage ­– and kept the sugar levels down so the spices can come through. By far the most complex and grown up bottle of the lot.