The Immortal's Guide to Wine

I have toasted kings with dry red wine and toasted peasants with sangria. I can tell you which parties were more fun.

There is a time for a bold, dry red. I keep a great many of them in my cellar, and I open them slowly, with a good steak and a long conversation. After five hundred years, I have learned not to rush the important things.

There is also a time for something sweeter: fruitier, colder, and made for passing around a crowded table. Spain understood this long before I did, and I have been arriving at Spanish parties since the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

That sweeter something is sangria. It keeps the depth and richness of red wine and adds ripe fruit and a gentle sweetness. It is served cold and meant to be shared. It is for anyone who loves a sweeter glass, for warm afternoons and lively evenings, and for the nights when the mood calls for celebration and nobody can quite remember why.

A Name After My Own Heart

The word sangria comes from the Spanish sangre, meaning blood. The drink was named for its deep red color.

Think about that. For centuries, an entire nation has filled pitchers with something it calls blood and passed it to grandmothers at Sunday lunch. Nobody blinks. I have never felt more welcome anywhere.

The English tried their hand at it in the 1700s with a wine punch they called Sangaree. I sampled it in London. It was perfectly pleasant, and it vanished within two centuries, which to me is the blink of an eye. Spain, meanwhile, kept making the real thing.

It All Begins with the Grapes

Sangria is wine first. The fruit and sweetness give it personality, but the wine is its heart, and the wine is only as good as the grapes it comes from.

Spain grows hundreds of grape varieties. Two of them stand above the rest as the country’s great red grapes, and those are the two I chose for Fangria.

Tempranillo: The Pride of Spain
Tempranillo is Spain’s signature red grape and its most widely planted. It is the backbone of Rioja and Ribera del Duero, the reds that wine snobs love to swirl and pronounce “serious.” Its name comes from temprano, “early,” because it ripens before most other red grapes. I respect any creature that knows to finish its work before sunrise.

What it brings to Fangria: structure, body, and depth, with dark cherry, plum, and a hint of spice. Tempranillo is why Fangria tastes like real wine.

Garnacha: Spain’s Generous Red Garnacha is a Spanish native that the French borrowed and renamed Grenache. They do that. Garnacha loves heat and sunshine, which is more than I can say for myself, and it gives Spanish reds their warmth and generosity.

What it brings to Fangria: bright, juicy red fruit such as strawberry, raspberry, and ripe cherry, along with a soft, round texture. Garnacha is why Fangria feels lush and inviting from the first sip.

The Land of La Mancha

Fangria’s Tempranillo and Garnacha grow in the province of Toledo, in the heart of La Mancha. It is one of the largest wine-growing regions on earth, with long, sun-drenched days that ripen red grapes to full, rich flavor.

I know those plains well. Around 1600, I spent a memorable evening there with a lean, earnest gentleman in rusty armor who became convinced that the windmills on the ridge were giants. I suggested he sit down and finish his wine. He charged anyway. Señor Cervantes later wrote the whole thing up as Don Quixote, and was kind enough to leave me out of it.

The windmills are still standing, and so are the vineyards.

Spain’s Great Grapes, Plus Fruit: The Fangria Formula

This is where wine becomes sangria. We start with Tempranillo and Garnacha, then add all-natural fruit flavors and a touch of unfermented grape juice.

The fruit brings the bright, festive character everyone loves in sangria. The grape juice adds natural sweetness that comes from the grape itself, so it blends with the wine instead of hiding it.

The result is not too sweet, but more than sweet enough. It is fruity and intriguing, fills the mouth with the flavor of rich red wine, and leaves a full finish. Spain’s two great red grapes, lifted by fruit: that is the whole idea of sangria in one bottle.

Why Fangria Is the Best Sangria You Can Pour

I have tasted sangria in every century it has existed. Here is why Fangria is the one I pour.

It is genuinely Spanish. Fangria is not “Spanish-style.” It is Spanish. In Europe, only sangria made in Spain and Portugal may be sold simply as “sangria.” Fangria qualifies.

It is built on Spain’s finest red grapes. Tempranillo and Garnacha are the two grapes Spain is proudest of, and they are the foundation of every bottle.

It is balanced. Natural fruit flavors and real grape juice provide the sweetness, so the wine still comes through in every sip.
It is a real drink. At 10% alcohol, Fangria has backbone. It is a bold, grown-up sangria that anyone can enjoy.

It is ready when you are. There is no chopping fruit, no soaking overnight, and no guessing at proportions. Fangria comes ready to pour and perfectly balanced, every time.

The critics agree.
“Once we bit into this Spanish sangria, we were greeted by bright, juicy fruit notes to round out this Tempranillo/Garnacha blend. Fun and funky, this is one product we think your customers will want to suck dry.”

— The Tasting Panel

I could not have put it better myself, and I have had five centuries to try.

Find Fangria Sangria at vampire.com — shop Vampire Vineyards at vampire.com

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At some point, someone convinced you that wine was complicated. That it required the right vocabulary, the right knowledge, the right reverence. They were wrong. And I have had five hundred years to be certain of it.Vampire Vineyards has been making gold medal-winning wine since 1988 — not because we followed the rules, but because we ignored the ones that didn't matter and obsessed over the ones that did. The fruit. The winemaking. The experience in the glass.This series exists to share everything we have learned. No pretension. No forest floors. Just wine, explained honestly, by someone who has had rather a lot of time to figure it out.

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