Sangria Recipe: Classic Red Sangria, Ratios and Rest Time

A classic red sangria is one bottle of dry red wine, a measure of brandy, orange and lemon juice, chopped apple and orange, a little sweetener and a splash of soda, chilled for a few hours. The recipe below comes from Daniel Gritzer at Serious Eats, who rests his for about 4 hours. There’s no single official version, so we also compare four other named recipes, then cover which fruit to skip, how to scale it for a party and what the word “sangria” means legally in Europe.

The recipe: Serious Eats’ red sangria

Gritzer’s recipe makes 4 to 8 servings, according to Serious Eats.

Ingredients

• 1 bottle (750 ml) light or medium dry red wine, such as Rioja
• ½ to 1 cup brandy or rum
• ¼ cup fresh orange juice, plus 2 wide strips of orange zest
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus 3 wide strips of lemon zest
• 1 medium navel orange, seeded and cut into pieces of about 1 inch
• 1 large apple, cored and cut into dice of about ¾ inch
• 1 can (12 oz) well-chilled club soda or seltzer
• ¼ cup simple syrup, plus more to taste
• Ice (optional) and orange wedges to serve

For the syrup, Serious Eats stirs or shakes ½ cup cold water with ½ cup sugar until the sugar dissolves.

Method

1. Mix the wine and brandy in a large pitcher, then stir in the juices.
2. Add the fruit. Twist the zest strips over the pitcher to release their oils, drop them in and stir.
3. Refrigerate for at least 2 and up to 8 hours. Serious Eats prefers about 4.
4. Gently stir in the soda, then the syrup, adjusting to taste a tablespoon at a time.
5. Pour over ice if you like, and garnish with an orange wedge.

Gritzer says his recipe “lands strong on the booze end”, and his own preference is the full cup of brandy. He suggests starting with ½ cup if you’re unsure and adding more at the end. We’d do exactly that.

Five named recipes, side by side

Recipe	Wine	Spirit or liqueur	Juice	Sweetener	Fizz	Rest
Serious Eats (Daniel Gritzer)	750 ml light or medium red, such as Rioja	½–1 cup brandy or rum	¼ cup orange, 2 tbsp lemon	¼ cup simple syrup	12 oz club soda	2–8 hours; 4 preferred
Spanish Wikipedia (Enrique Tomás)	75 cl (750 ml) red	18 cl (about 6 oz) brandy	½ lemon	1–2 tsp sugar	1 liter soda, usually citrus	Overnight, optional but recommended
Wine Folly, Ruby Red (Madeline Puckette)	750 ml Garnacha, Merlot or Tempranillo	Optional ¼–½ cup brandy or vodka	1 cup ruby red grapefruit, 2 limes	¼ cup sugar	None	Not stated
Wine Folly, Classic Spanish	750 ml medium-bodied red	None	1 orange, 1 lemon or 2 limes	¼–½ cup sugar	1 cup soda water or Cava	Not stated; serve with ice
Wine Spectator (Harvey Steiman)	½ bottle Grenache-based red	2 oz Triple Sec	¼ cup orange	2 tsp sugar	¼ cup sparkling wine	None; built over ice

Tomás’s recipe, credited in Spanish Wikipedia’s article, has the longest rest and the most soda. It also calls for 1 apple and 2 peaches, with cinnamon or mint optional. Wine Folly’s Madeline Puckette compared five classic recipes and found the best ones surprisingly simple. Steiman’s recipe is for two and, he says, scales up easily.

Our pick: Serious Eats for a party you can plan ahead, and the Wine Folly Classic Spanish, which has no spirit and which Wine Folly calls tart and refreshing, on short notice.

How long to let sangria rest

This is the main disagreement among the sources:

• None: Wine Spectator’s recipe goes straight over ice.
• 2 to 4 hours or the night before: Wine Insiders’ Laura Koffer, who says it often tastes better the next day.
• 2 to 8 hours: Serious Eats, which found 4 hours struck the best balance. It warns that the fruit can over-soften and the drink can turn bitter if left too long.
• Overnight: the recipe in Spanish Wikipedia, which calls this optional but highly recommended. The same article elsewhere says the fruit needs a couple of hours.

In our view, 4 hours is the safe choice for any recipe with citrus zest or peel. If you need to work the day before, we’d mix the wine and spirit and add the fruit the next morning. Add any bubbles at the end.

Which wine to use

Serious Eats says tradition points to a Spanish Rioja, but any similarly light to medium-bodied red works. It says to avoid big, tannic reds, which make the drink harsh, and higher-end bottles, which lose their nuances. Wine Folly’s list is Garnacha, Merlot or Tempranillo.

We’d spend about what you’d pay for a weeknight bottle. Our best cheap wine list has critic-scored options at those prices, and a box of wine is the cheapest way to fill a punch bowl, since a 3-liter box holds four bottles’ worth.

Which fruit works and which to skip

Gritzer soaked a wide range of fruit in wine for a few hours. His findings:

Fruit	Serious Eats’ result
Apples, oranges, lemons	The ones he kept for the recipe
Grapes, peaches	Good in the wine
Berries, melons	Slippery and soggy
Mango, pineapple	Odd in red wine
Strawberries, kiwis, raspberries, blackberries	Bitter, because of their seeds

If you love berries, he suggests adding them to each glass just before serving.

How to scale it for a party

Steiman and Puckette both say sangria can be scaled up. Here’s our multiplication of the Serious Eats recipe, at its lower brandy amount:

Ingredient	1 bottle	2 bottles	4 bottles
Red wine	750 ml	1.5 L	3 L
Brandy	½ cup	1 cup	2 cups
Orange juice	¼ cup	½ cup	1 cup
Lemon juice	2 tbsp	¼ cup	½ cup
Oranges and apples	1 of each	2 of each	4 of each
Club soda	12 oz	24 oz	48 oz
Simple syrup, to taste	¼ cup	½ cup	1 cup
Approx. liquid before ice and fruit	46 oz	92 oz	184 oz

At 5 ounces a glass, that’s about 9, 18 or 37 pours.

How strong is homemade sangria?

Added brandy makes it worth doing the math. Assuming a 13% wine and a 40% brandy, and counting all the liquid in each recipe, here’s our rough estimate before any ice melts:

Recipe	Estimated ABV	Standard drinks in the pitcher
Serious Eats with ½ cup brandy	About 11%	About 8
Serious Eats with 1 cup brandy	About 13%	About 11
Tomás, with 18 cl brandy and 1 liter soda	About 9%	About 10

These figures are our calculations using the NIAAA’s standard drink of 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol, not numbers from the recipes.

Note: A glass of sangria can be as strong as a glass of wine, even with all the juice and soda. We’d offer small glasses, plenty of ice and an alcohol-free option alongside.

Variations

• White sangria. Use a crisp, dry white.
• Sparkling with peaches. Wine Folly’s other top recipe uses a bottle of Cava or Prosecco, ¼ cup brandy or triple sec, 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar, 3 to 4 white peaches and the juice of 1 lemon, served right away.
• Lighter. For less alcohol and sugar, a wine spritzer is the simple alternative.
• Alcohol-free. Koffer suggests grape juice, tea or sparkling water with fresh fruit and citrus.

What “sangria” means under EU rules

In Europe, sangria is a protected drink. EU Regulation 251/2014 defines sangria as an aromatised wine-based drink made from wine, flavored with natural citrus extracts or essences, with or without the juice. Spices and carbon dioxide may be added, but no coloring. Its alcohol must be at least 4.5% and under 12%.

The name is limited as well. Only a product made in Spain or Portugal may be sold simply as sangria. From any other EU country, it must be called an “aromatised wine-based drink”, with “sangria” allowed as a supplement alongside “produced in” and the place of origin. The rules also name two relatives:

• Clarea: the same drink made from white wine.
• Zurra: sangria or clarea with added brandy or wine spirit, at 9% to under 14%.

These rules cover products on sale in the EU, not your pitcher, though in our reading many brandy-heavy home recipes are closer to zurra.

Where sangria comes from

Serious Eats says Spanish food expert Penelope Casas, in her 1982 book, described sangria as once popular in Iberia until cheap bottled products hurt its name, and that the 1964 World’s Fair is credited with boosting it in the US. Serious Eats and Spanish Wikipedia both connect the name to sangaree and to sangre, the Spanish word for blood.

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