Summer Fruit White Wine Sangria Recipe

We had a special treat visit our office. AKA this White Wine Sangria. Yum. Elana, founder of the innovative and health conscious private cooking school, Meal and A Spiel, whipped up this delicious Summer treat right in our office so we could enjoy a little happy hour. Yes, please! She has all the insider tips and tricks for making this summer sangria recipe with the summer fruits currently in season. Here’s her meal spiel – or in this case sangria spiel:

Sangria is tricky. Made well, it is a enlivening mouth sensory experience formed by the perfect marriage between earthy notes of good wine and the sweet acidity of juicy fruit. At worst, it is a hangover that doesn’t quit and a headache that splits temples in two. I’ve been there.

The first sangria I attempted was for my own going away party in Rome, the first timeI lived there, circa 1997. Raquel, a Spanish friend of mine who I met in language class several years prior, had told me how to make sangria. Red wine, fruit, lemon soda and vodka. My head hurts just writing those words. I ruined my own party for myself. The headache I think came with the first sip. I have no idea if any other Spaniard in the world would agree with her sangria recipe, but I learned a very valuable life lesson from that experience: Do not add sugar (or lemon soda which is filled with sugar) or vodka to red wine.

Sometimes it is only through downfall that one rises to great heights. After that party, I think I made a secret pledge to erase the disaster by bringing a perfect sangria forth to share with the world. It took me 15 years, but here it is.

This sangria is perfect because it uses Moscato d’Asti, a favorite light bubbly Italiandessert wine, mixed with a dry rose` to create a crisp blend of wines that is just sweet enough and just strong enough. The color of the mixture reflects the sun rays of summer and once the fruit is added, you will be serving a work of art created from the greatest delights our earth provides us with.

Ingredients:

1 bottle chilled Moscato d’Asti
1 bottle chilled good rose`or vinho verde wine
FRUIT: choose from the following that you find through your local farmer’s market (the amount is a suggestion not a rule. You can’t mess this up!!)
an orange, sliced into1⁄2 orange cut into 3 circles, and then in half = 6 pieces
3 apricots chopped into 1⁄2 inch pieces
3 plums, sliced into 1⁄2 inch pieces
2 nectarines or peaches white or orange, or one of both sliced into
wedges (eighths)
1 pears, cored and cut into 1⁄2 inch slices
1 apple
2 handfuls of green/white grapes
10 cherries plus more for garnishing each glass
10 strawberries plus more for garnishing each glass
Fresh mint or basil leaves to garnish (optional)

Mix it up, put it in the fridge covered for an hour, and serve it up. (Don’t leave in fridge too long or you will lose the bubbles. To prepare in advance, cut up all the fruit and just pour in the chilled wines an hour before guests arrive.)