A wine spritzer is a mixture of wine, sparkling water and ice. With its moderate acidity and low alcohol content a spritzer is the perfect drink to still your thirst. You can easily decorate it with a wedge of lemon, orange or a physalis making it a wonderful summer welcome drink.
Alternatively you can choose a wine with a low alcohol content.
Which wines are used for a wine spritzer?
You can take dry white wines like chardonnay, pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc and others depending on your taste. Remember that the aroma of the wine is responsible for the taste of the spritzer. The lower temperature at which it`s served underlines the acidity of the wine and reduces the fruity and floral aroma. Therefore, choose a fruity not too dry wine!
You can also use rose, red or even sparkling wines for a spritzer depending on your preference.
Alternatively, a broad variety of readymade drinks as barefoot, coolcat or movo spritzers is available from your local store. You can also check with your local vintner. This is very common in the German wine regions where a spritzer is called “Weinschorle”. The Hendriks winery on the shores of Lake Constance offers a very nice white or rose spritzer. Wine experts normally don`t frown upon a spritzer made out of light wine and sparkling water.
How to make a wine spritzer?
Take a Bordeaux or Cosmo glass, fill it with 1 part of wine and 3 parts of cooled sparkling water and add ice cubes. Finally decorate the glass with a lemon or orange wedge depending on the wine you use.
If you prefer crushed ice fill 1/3 of the glass with crushed ice, add 1 part of wine and 3 parts of cooled sparkling water.
How many calories are in a wine spritzer?
The amount of calories depends on the wine you use and the amount of sparkling water you add. The wine with the lowest carb content is champagne with 80 kcal / 100 ml followed by dry whites like Moscato, Chablis with 107 kcal / 100 ml. Dry red wines have a slightly higher carb content of 120-140 kcal / 100 ml.
Wine spritzer with soda?
You can replace the sparkling water in the recipe by sodas to get a sweeter or fruitier taste. Fever Tree Mediterranean tonic water has a low calory content and offers a slight lemon taste. This perfectly adds to the fruity, slightly acidic taste of the white wine.
Other variations use Sprite™ or 7UP™ instead of sparkling water. In case you take red wine for your spritzer you can replace the sparkling water by cola. This is a Calimocho or CoRea (Cola/Red wine).
