I wouldn't have tried it prior to the recipe so I couldn't tell you but honestly when you are making mulled wine once you put all the shit from the recipe into it (cloves, anise, oranges, brandy etc) and heat it up it all really tastes the same. There wasn't much difference I ever tasted between using cheap shit wine vs good expensive wine. My go-to for it is a bulgarian wine called Varna that costs maybe like 5-6 euros. There's no sense wasting "good" wine on it because all the other stuff in it dominates the flavour.