What Wine Works Best for Sangria?

Sangria is the ultimate lazy-girl cocktail: simply throw some fruit, wine, soda and maybe a little complementary liqueur together and call it a day. 

Sangria, derived from sangre, the Spanish word for blood (owed to red wine sangria’s blood red color) is a staple backyard barbecue and restaurant patio cocktail. It’s refreshing, fruity and incredibly easy to customize and serve to many guests. 

We love sangria for its summery simplicity, but putting just a little extra thought into your sangria’s wine selection can yield incredible results. Keep scrolling for a breakdown of the four different styles of sangria and which wines pair best with each type. 

Let’s get the most important question out of the way: Does it even matter what bottle of wine you use in sangria? I mean, it’s mixed together with a bunch of other stuff, so I can just use whatever I have on-hand...right? 

We’ll leave the answer to this question to Dave Malone, ABC wine expert and our go-to guy for all things sangria. 

“For the best results, I always suggest using a quality wine that you’d be happy drinking on its own,” Dave said. “Quality doesn’t mean that the wine has to be expensive. Spain is known for its amazing values, so I always suggest considering those first.” 

Think of it this way: if you’re making a classic margarita, you want to use a tequila that you enjoy on its own, but you probably don’t want to reach for that special bottle of Clase Azul or Don Julio. It’s the same when choosing a wine for your sangria. Pick a quality, mid-priced wine, but there’s no need to dump a treasured bottle of Caymus into a punch bowl. 

What about using sweet vs. dry wine in sangria? It’s totally up to your preference, but Dave generally recommends choosing a wine on the drier side to counterbalance all the sweet ingredients that are typically added to sangria, like flavored syrups, purees, liqueurs, sugary soda and, of course, fruit. But that’s the beauty of sangria: it’s entirely customizable, so make it as dry or sweet as you like it! 

Now, let’s get into the best wines for each type of sangria (red sangria, white sangria, rosé sangria and sparkling sangria) and suggested spirits, liqueurs, fruits, herbs and other add-ins. But first, here’s a baseline sangria recipe with the general proportions of ingredients you should add. As we said, it’s all customizable, but this is a good place to start when you start building a delicious sangria! 

Making classic red wine sangria is all about capturing the juicy flavor of bold, dark fruits: blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, plums and more. These are notes you typically find in red wine, so it makes sense to curate your sangria to reflect that flavor profile.  

As Dave mentioned above, Spain is home to many delicious, reasonably priced red wines, such as Tempranillo, Garnacha and Rioja, all of which are great choices for your red sangria recipe. Spanish wines are fruit-forward, medium- to full-bodied and softly tannic, making them a perfect backbone for any red sangria pitcher. We’ve included some of our favorites below.

If red wine sangria leans into the plush flavors of dark fruits, white sangria does the exact opposite. In a white sangria, you want the crisp, clean, acidic notes of fresh citrus, stone fruits (peaches, apricots, etc.), pears and tart green apples. 

Chardonnay may be the first white wine you think of, but its rich, buttery flavors aren’t a great fit for sangria. Instead, opt for an acidic sauvignon blanc or any other zesty white. The refreshing minerality in these wines will make for a perfect poolside-sipping sangria. Check out some of our suggested white wines to use in sangria below. 

You may have noticed a pattern here with picking a wine for your sangria based on the fruit notes you want to highlight, and the same holds true for rosé sangrias. If red sangrias are full of rich, dark fruits and white sangrias are full of clean, crisp fruits, rosé sangrias fall somewhere in the middle with softly sweet red and pink fruits. Think strawberries, watermelons, raspberries, lychees and Rainier cherries.  

Luckily, there are plenty of quality rosés to choose from that over-deliver for the price point. Nobody does rosé like France, but don’t be afraid to explore rosés made in other parts of the world! You might just find a hidden gem, like the rosé from Portugal featured below. Shop that one and other rosés that are perfect for sangria below.

When it comes to pairing, sparkling wine is the jack of all trades. You can serve it with a Tomahawk steak or Tuesday night meatloaf and it’ll pair perfectly regardless. 

That’s why you can really have fun with making a sparkling sangria. For red, white and rosé sangrias, you have to play to the wine’s strengths, but with a sparkling sangria, the wine will adapt to whatever you want to add to the punch bowl.  

So go crazy when assembling a sparkling sangria! Add mango, kiwi or pineapple, or even more off-the-beaten path fruits like starfruit or dragonfruit. Add some of that flavored liqueur that’s been collecting dust on your bar shelf. Sparkling wine will play nice with pretty much anything. 

Apart from Champagne, Prosecco is the most well-loved sparkling wine varietal, but in the spirit of Spanish excellence, give cava a try for your sparkling sangria. It’s a deliciously effervescent (and underrated) sparkling wine from Spain for an unbeatable price point. Browse some of our favorite cavas and other sparkling wines below.