The Romans did not drink sangria but “they mixed black wine with pepper and honey and called it mulsum, in medieval times it was made with spices (also pepper) and honey, and in Catalonia it was called vi piment,” explains food historian Núria Báguena. Today the most refreshing red wine of the summer is a classic that is bathed with sugar, orange juice, a touch of liqueur, some spices, lots of ice and seasonal fruits. The popular sangria, which was already on the verge of passing into the category of an old drink, has been revived so strongly in recent years that it has become a fashionable, sparkling and even glamorous soft drink. Tourists and locals drink it alike in Spain. Various brands on the market (including La Cala by Albert Adrià) have recovered it and some fill the bottles with polka dots and stripes, giving such a fun and fun touch to the presentation that it seems like it was born yesterday.
If you want to refresh yourself in the middle of the calendula with your own sangria, there are 7 mistakes you should not make. Is it too watery, too sweet or hot? Do you know what liquors you can mix wine with? Are you one of those who throws in the first fruit you find at hand? Why doesn’t sugar sometimes melt? Is it important to remove the indentation? The expert bartender Damià Mulà gives us all the keys.
Red wine is the base of a classic sangria, but that does not exclude that it can be given a touch of flavor by adding a little liqueur or some other alcohol-based drink. “Now, you don’t have to go overboard and add more than one, from different distillations, because the mixture blurs the final flavor,” explains bartender Damià Mulà, who advises adding a touch of flavor with a brandy, a Cointreau or a vodka. “Wine combines with everything that can balance it, I really like to add an orange liqueur, which you can complete very well by adding peel or slices of the same fruit.” A little sherry can also give the wine its characteristic bota flavor. For 0.75 liters of wine, we will add 2 cl of brandy or liqueur.
There are also those who add a carbonated drink, such as soda, to give it a spicy, frizzante touch, “but it is not the typical recipe and it doesn’t convince me too much.”
What is essential is that both the wine and the rest of the alcohol are of good quality. Young wines made with Tempranillo, Garnacha, Monastrell or Shiraz can be very good and are very affordable, although Damià Mulà doesn’t mind making sangria with original wines from cooperatives or with more expensive ones. “The better the product, the better the result,” he says. “A mixologist will say that you can add a good reserva if he feels like it, but a sommelier won’t think so because in this way you hide the qualities of the wine and you don’t taste it in its fullness.”
Summer is a time rich in fruits that we can incorporate into our sangria. Peaches, citrus fruits, pears, cherries (it is not necessary to remove the pine nut), red plum (gives it a good reddish tone), watermelon… That does not mean that you cannot also add a green and acidic apple (“cut into wedges it is very pretty”), or even grapes, “but don’t add banana because it gives the sangria pastiness, making it too dense,” says cocktail professor and advisor Damià Mulà. In general, “fruits with hard pulp that withstand the absorption of wine well and add rich flavors work well.” Therefore, palo santo should not be included because its flesh would fall apart. Pineapple doesn’t work either “since it doesn’t add a positive flavor to the wine.” Citrus fruits cannot be missing, and they can be put all together because they go well together: the bitter touch that the grapefruit gives to the sangria, the sweetness of the orange and the acidity of the lemon. “On a taste level, lime is somewhere between orange and lemon,” says Mulà.
The fruits we use should not be too ripe or too green so that the sangria does not suffer. The traditional recipe also includes orange juice or lemon soda. For 0.75 liters of wine, we will put 33 cl.
The fruits for sangria can be cut into cubes, a style that is very practical, but also into wedges (if we are talking about oranges) or slices. “What matters is that each type of fruit is recognizable, it must be cut aesthetically and it should never be crushed, if we mash it we are no longer talking about sangria,” says Damià, who advises not making the pieces too large. “The smaller they are, the better they will macerate with the wine.” Because the fruit also takes on the flavor of the wine, and can be eaten: “It’s like a winey fruit salad.” Of course, if you introduce them with the skin, you will not be able to eat them like fruit salad.
The percentage of fruit “should not be more than a quarter of the capacity of the jug where we make the drink, the rest is wine and ice,” says the bartender, who is passionate about introducing citrus peels into the sangria. “I never put lemon pieces but I do add lemon peel, which we call twist, because it gives it a fantastic aromatic touch. The same thing happens with orange peel, it provides less juice and provides more flavor. Everything depends on taste, but we cannot forget that the predominant flavor must be that of the wine. The traditional sangria recipe also includes a cinnamon stick.
Sangria contains wine but also fruits, therefore it has a contribution of fructose that provides sweetness and there is no need to abuse added sugar. “We look for a point of sweetness but not an excess that hides the flavor of the wine,” says Mulà. Does alcohol go to your head sooner if we sweeten it? “The truth is there is no scientific evidence, what scientists do say is that if we sweeten it too much, the sugar will mask the strong mouthfeel of the alcohol, and this will make it easier for us to drink more than necessary,” says Montserrat Saperas, member of the cooking and gastronomy research group at the CETT school.
A basic rule: If we add sugar to the sangria when it already has ice, we will not achieve anything, “because the sugar in contact with the cold will not dissolve. You should never put sugar after ice,” explains the bartender. Mulà prefers to add syrup rather than sugar. “With a liter of water and a kilo of sugar you make a syrup that can help you rectify the sweetness of the sangria.” It would be a serious mistake to add it to the sangria when it is still hot “because the ice would melt. We mixologists reserve it, let it cool and put it in the refrigerator.”
The time we have the fruits macerating with the wine, liquor and sugar will depend on our personal taste. “If you leave them for a whole day, the wine will soak up much more of its flavor than if it stays for 3 or 4 hours, which is more or less the average recommended time,” explains the bartender, who advises against extending the process too much, although it is very difficult to reach it. ferment. “If we forget about sangria for a week, we will find it useless!” smiles Damià Mulà, who has his own website.
If you have a vacuum sealer at home, you can osmotize the fruit “and achieve a day’s worth of results in just two minutes,” the expert tells us, who also advises macerating the ingredients in a bottle and closing it airtight with a cap. of silicone that achieves a vacuum effect “so that the wine is better impregnated with the flavors.”
Sangria is drunk very cold, with ice cubes, never with crushed ice “because it would water down the result,” explains Mulà, who recommends adding plenty of ice. With the high summer temperatures, two cubes in the pitcher of sangria will dissolve in just two minutes, much faster than if you put eight in it. “The more ice you add, the less water appears, that’s how it is,” says Damià and warns us of the importance of stirring the mixture immediately when we have added the cubes. “As soon as you serve it, you have to stir it with a long rod so that it does not become clear and to distribute the content well: the wine tends to stay at the bottom and the water at the top.”
The Catalan bartender also recommends that we make cubes with the same type of wine that we use so that, as the ice melts, we do not lose intensity of flavor.
Traditional sangria allows for variations, depending on the splash of alcohol we add or the type of fruit we use, but we can also go one step further and try new suggestions. For example, changing the wine for cava or champagne, “in this case we can add grapes and acidic apples and add a little bit of sherry, which has the same wine base as cava,” explains Damià Mulà.
The mixologist likes mulled wine sangria, heir to the ancient recipe for boiled wine or vi de cop. To achieve it, heat red wine and when it starts to boil we stop it and add vanilla pod, cardamom seeds, anise stars, cinnamon bark, and bring it back to the boil. When it reaches bubbling, we stop it again and add orange liqueur, syrup and citrus peels. We boil again, stop it and infuse it for about 15 minutes. We strain all the liquid and let it cool slowly. We put it in the refrigerator and when it is cold we serve it with lots of ice.
We can also make children’s sangria, eliminating alcohol from the recipe. “My father made us one with all kinds of soft drinks mixed with natural fruit that was wonderful,” remembers the bartender. That said, sangria is a drink from the past with a great future.
