A Mixtape For Your Palate

If you have a history with mixtapes, you might really love the label art on this white sangria from Spain. It features representations of those blank cassettes we filled with the best songs available, only for those who really deserved them. Don't get me wrong - the picture is nice, but I think you'll like what's mixed on the inside of the bottle, too.

Spanish producer Elvi makes a red and a white sangria, both from Tempranillo grapes with other juice flavors added. Sangria, be it red or white, is a great quaff for a hot summer day. This bottle will save you the trouble of mixing it up yourself. Of course, some of us don't mind making our own special mixes.

The label proclaims that this white sangria is 100% natural grape wine with natural flavors. The alcohol is predictably light at just 7% abv and it sells for $11. The label also has markings indicating that it is kosher, and it is imported by the Royal Wine Company, kosher wine specialists. However, I discovered elsewhere that this white sangria is not kosher for Passover.

The nose of this wine shows huge pears, peaches, melon and apricot. They are all on the palate as well, and the fruit is kept in the semi-sweet range. Acidity is not the strong suit here, but the sip is plenty fun on its own.

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Sangria: Wine Concentrates From Colorado

Decadent Saint describes themselves as "Colorado’s Craft Winery," and they claim to be pioneering the American craft wine market with a revolution in a bottle. Small batch produced, their 20.5% abv wine concentrates can be diluted to make up to five bottles of a wine and fruit juice mix. Retail is about $20 each, so you’re making sangria for $4 a bottle. The concentrates are made with wine, real fruit and fresh spices, and contain no flavorings. They say they stay fresh for six months after opening without refrigeration.

Enologist and owner Michael Hasler says, "nothing on the shelves compares with them for taste, value or utility."

Decadent Saint was formerly What We Love, The Winery.  The concentrates come in three flavors: White Sangria, Fire or Ice Sangria and Mountain Rescue. based on a homemade recipe that Hasler created while he owned a ski lodge in New Zealand.

Decadent Saint White Sangria

This one features "White Wine, Real Fruit, Fresh Spice," as the label says. ."Tastes like freshly blended tropical fruits!" That’s truth in advertising, right there. They promise aromatics of mango, passion fruit, peach, guava, grapefruit and spice, and it's all true. Just add water, although I liked it better with seltzer. Prosecco makes a nice mix, too. The bottle of concentrate makes three to five bottles of white sangria.

It’s really viscous right from the bottle, more so than orange juice, but about the same color. The aroma, undiluted, is like a concentrated orange/tangerine/pineapple juice blend. It tastes like OJ, as well. I did a one-to-one mix with seltzer water and found it was still fairly thick and very much like a mimosa, with a little alcohol at the back end. So, they really do mean it when they say to dilute three to five times.

Decadent Saint Fire Or Ice Sangria

As the name suggests, you can drink it hot or cold, like a sangria or a mulled wine, depending on which holiday you’re celebrating.

Decadent Saint Rocky Mountain Rescue

This concentrate includes red wine, dark chocolate, decaf coffee, berries and spice. Again, there’s no stipulation on temperature. Drink it hot or cold, they say. The Rocky Mountain Rescue leads off with a dark chocolate raspberry note, smoothly transitioning to a rich mocha before giving way to the full spice cacophony.

While sangria is nearly always a limited color in my wine palette, I can say these concentrates make some decidedly good ones.  I found that I liked them best with one-to-one or two-to-one dilution, but at that point they are still very viscous and concentrated. Follow the recipe and you'll have enough refreshing sangrias to get through a good part of the summer.


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WHITE SANGRIA AT SOUTH POINT

I have mentioned before that Los Angeles Argentine restaurant South Point  has a tendency to store their red wines in the attic rather than the cellar - at least that’s the impression I get from the rather warm serving temperature .  Their whites, happily, do not suffer the same fate.  Just to be safe, on my most recent visit there, I took advantage of the hot summer weather and ordered a white sangria .

Our waitress explained that she would be back after she made it.  It didn’t take long before she brought a beverage that looked like a pink lemonade to the table.  The tint comes thanks to a dash of grenadine.

The white sangria features the Trapiche  Torrontes and lemonade, along with small chunks of orange, lemon and strawberry.  She also added a little sugar, which I felt was unnecessary and I will ask her to skip next time.

It’s a refreshing drink with tartness from the lemon, brightness from orange and sweetness from the strawberry.  I left the sugar at the bottom of the glass.  Oh, and there’s plenty of ice, so it’s nice and cold, no matter where the wine is stored.