I’m all about using local, in-season ingredients in the kitchen. This weekend, I made two different types of sangria using local wine, fresh berries and fresh peaches.
We moved here from Arkansas, which, despite the marketing efforts of the wine industry there, produces pretty horrible wine. I bought a bottle of semi-sweet wine once and brought it home to my wife, who is fairly new to wine and even she couldn’t drink it. Suffice to say, I’ve developed a healthy mistrust of American wineries outside of California.
The Missouri town I live in has a local wine maker, St. James Winery. Armed with my predisposition against wineries like this, I tried not to like this winery, but have been pleasantly surprised with its offerings. Since it’s local and they have a pretty wide array of wines, I decided to experiment with a couple of their wines to make sangrias. Why not? It’s perfect sangria weather, as hot and muggy as it’s been here lately.
Traditional sangria usually calls for dry red wines with sugar added, but I decided to try a white and a red in semi-dry and semi-sweet varieties so they would be sweet enough to not have to add sugar.
Here are my recipes:
White Sangria
1 bottle St. James Winery Vintner’s Select Vignole (750 mL)
1 orange
1 lemon
1 lime
Seltzer water
1 ripe peach
Mix the juices of the three citrus fruits together, leaving part of the fruit to slice into the sangria. Pour the white wine into a pitcher, add the citrus juices, citrus slices and peeled and sliced peaches. Top off the pitcher with seltzer water. I’d say I used between 1-2 cups of seltzer water.
Serve well-chilled or over ice.
Red Sangria
1 bottle of St. James Winery Country Red (750 mL)
1 12-ounce can of peach juice
1 peach, peeled and sliced
1 orange
A handful of ripe blueberries
Mix all of the ingredients together and serve well-chilled or over ice
So there you have my sangria recipes. Enjoy!
Does anyone else have a sangria variation to share?
thatsbutter.wordpress.com 
July 14, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Ahhh…sangrias! Second only to mojitos!
Yup, I have another variation. I do a red sangria with a semi-sweet wine. I don’t add sugar, either. I use oranges, limes, lemons, peaches, and anything else that happens to look good, sometimes nectarines. Then, I muddle the fruit a bit and soak the fruit overnight in the wine. The next evening, I top it off with seltzer water and serve.
For my white variation, I typically use white peaches, nectarines, and lemons.
I’ve never seen blueberries in a sangria. Now, I want to try a variation with white wine, grapefruit, and blueberries.
Also, I have done this with both red and white sparkling grape juice for non-drinkers. Kroger carries an organic sparkling pear juice that would be a nice carrier for the all the fruity goodness, too.
July 21, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Thanks for giving Missouri Wine a try! There are a lot of really wonderful Missouri wines, and half the fun is the tasting. The wine maker at St. James ROCKS! Andrew does a fantastic job! Gotta love their Friendship School red! Cheers!
July 21, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I haven’t met Andrew, but I’ve heard a lot about him from a good friend of mine who is the marketing director there. I think my favorite as of late is their Chambourcin.
October 23, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Try Stone Hill Chambourcin! Its great. Yep, I sure love StJ for delicious Friendship School White and most others… but the Hermann grapes are great in the Chambourcin!!