How to make sangria to cool down your hot, hot summer -

Over the past few weeks, as I tasted a variety of wines and ripe summer fruits while composing sangrias (hey, it’s a tough gig, people), I kept flashing back to my early 20s. I’d stumbled into taking a wine class with a friend, and my wine knowledge at the time boiled down to “Some wines are red; other wines are white. There are also some pink wines.” On the grape-strewn road that oenophiles travel to become certified experts, I had not even reached the tier of Lesser Doofus.

A smarty wine man guided us through several flights, referencing French and Italian terms and sometimes — far worse — using terms I knew were English but may as well have been Aramaic. He would swirl the wine in his glass, peer into its depths as though his future might appear there, raise it to his nose, inhale deeply, sip, then extol or excoriate its contents. He used terms like “tannins” and “legs.” I remember he described one wine as “foxy,” which had me picturing Dana Carvey’s seduction scene in “Wayne’s World” and wondering if a wine had to have good “legs” to be “foxy” (to be fair, we were several wines in by that point, and I hadn’t been using the spittoon.)

Most of all, he kept referring to flavors and aromas — Blackberries! Vanilla! Stone fruit! — that I hadn’t been perceiving at all until he mentioned them, whereupon that often became all I could taste. I’m sure we sipped good wines that night, but I left feeling mystified and intimidated.

The cocktail world, of course, is loaded with its own pretensions and absurdities and mysterious terms, which can feel just as exclusionary until you’ve picked up the lingo. And as I’ve learned about cocktails, I’ve inevitably learned more about wine. I’ve educated my palate. I’ve tasted wines where I picked up on some unexpected, appealing flavor (tasting a powerful butterscotch note on a malbec years back was an eye-opening moment for me, the first time I realized that people might not be faking this stuff). I’ve probably reached Middle Doofus certification at this point.

But one thing I love about being a cocktail person is that if I’m drinking something that has notes of blackberries or vanilla or stone fruit, it’s usually because the creator has actually put that ingredient — or something that approximates it — into the drink. Hallelujah! Transparency! I’m tasting blackberry because it is there, not because some guy said the word “blackberry” and my overly people-pleasing brain went, “Of course! Blackberry!”

Get the recipe: Blackberry-Elderflower Sangria

Welcome to sangria, a drink where wine meets cocktails, in a flexible, approachable format that has long evaded the pretensions and excesses of both categories.

Sangria is traditionally made with fruity red wine (tempranillo and grenache are common) and an assortment of fresh fruit and fortified with brandy or triple sec. Its origins are somewhat hazy. But it’s safe to say that the world’s earliest mixologists were likely in this space, using sugar, fruits, spices, herbs and spirits to turn wine into medicine, make its flavors more complex, hide its flaws, or give it more boozy “oomph.”

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From the cinnamon-laden Greco-Roman hippocras, to the English mulled wine, to the madeira-based sangaree popular in the 18th century Caribbean, to the vermouth ubiquitous in our cocktails, sangria belongs to a big family of aromatized, fortified wine riffs, with lots of second and third cousins.

In the E.U., Spain and Portugal are the only countries permitted to market their aromatized wine products as “sangria” — but the E.U. isn’t going to come for you if you call it that at your own fiesta.

Get the recipe: Strawberry Vermouth Sangria

While it’s related to mulled wine, sangria is not a drink for mulling over. It’s a drink for long summer afternoons on patios overlooking the sea, but the looseness and ease of making the drink can summon the vibe of those vistas even if you’re just sipping it from the shallows of the plastic kiddie pool you set up in your backyard. It is inherently social — does anyone drink sangria alone? (If you sense that I’m sidling up to suggesting that another sangria cousin is punch, you caught me. Sidle on up beside me and pour yourself a glass.)

Sangria moved well beyond fruity red wines for bases, and in such a sweltering summer, whites, rosés and sparkling wines are a boon to the drink. And the bounty of the craft cocktail movement has given us, too, the opportunity to up our sangria game with all the tools now in our toolbox — the fruit liqueurs, the fresh herbs, the artisanal syrups, the bitters.

Here are tips for mixing up one of summer’s best tipples.

No need to get spendy. I’m not saying grab the cheapest plonk you can get; you want a base you enjoy. But don’t waste a pricey, nuanced bottle on sangria. Unless your friends are the type to root through your trash like raccoons, they’re never going to see that footprint silhouette or kangaroo on the bottle, because you’re going to serve them this drink in a beautiful pitcher, laden with fruit, hiding any such sins.
Serve it chilled. Yes, even red wine sangrias. Unlike pure wine, sangria is often served with ice (and even lengthened with soda), and some dilution will help both the drink and the drinker on a hot summer afternoon. But you can also make yours ahead of time and keep it chilled until service.
Mind the sugar. Liqueur, syrups and fruits will contribute sweetness, but remember that the wine itself will, too. Aim for contrasts — start with a drier wine and add sweetness, or if you use something sweeter, think about what additions will provide balance. (In the Strawberry Vermouth Sangria, you can adjust the ratio of dry to the sweeter blanc vermouth to your own preference.)

Get the recipe: Passion Fruit Sangria

Look for fruits and liquid additions that play well with others. I’ve never really thought Granny Smith apples play nice in red-wine sangrias. But riesling and melon or peaches? Passion fruit and rosé? Great stuff. And if you’re someone who has moved beyond the Doofus tier and you have a wine you love for particular flavor notes — that strawberry aroma of some rosés, the crisp grapefruit tang in sauvignon blanc — by all means, lean into it, either by building up the note itself or playing off it with something complementary.
Chew on it? While you can strain out the solids in these recipes, it’s not required. Personally, I like leaving at least some of the blackberries in the Blackberry-Elderflower Sangria, and I often leave other fruit in place too, for both visual appeal and possible nibbling. I did strain the strawberries out of the vermouth, because they look a little anemic after infusing, but they made a great addition to a batch of homemade strawberry ice cream.

And if you use a little more or less of an ingredient, don’t sweat it. Honestly, it’s possible to make bad sangria, but you have to work at it. In this heat, who has that kind of energy?

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