Tinto de Verano

Spanish Tinto de Verano is a refreshing, inexpensive drink prepared with red wine, lemon soda and served over lots of ice and garnished with lemon and/or orange slices. I could enjoy a glass of this drink outdoors in the evening all summer long and feel like I am on top of a rooftop bar in Madrid.

We spent few weeks in Spain this past June and had an incredible trip. We tried so many delicious tapas, great dishes and mouth watering delicacies from local bakeries. I’m so inspired to cook everything I ate or drank:). I fell in love with tinto de verano and asked several of our Spanish friends on how they make it.

Tinto de Verano – translated to English word for word means Summer Red so you know it’s a summer drink made with red wine just from the description:).

Don’t confuse this famous Spanish drink with sangria, while similar they’re different too. They both use wine but in sangria, you kind of infuse the wine with the fruits and you can add orange juice as well as vodka to strengthen sangria. While with tinto de verano, you just mix equal quantities of wine and soda.

What red wine do you use for tinto de verano?

A lot of the places we visited around Spain used Rioja/ Tempranillo red wine to make tinto de verano. Since you have to mix the red wine with a lemon lime soda, you don’t want to use an expensive wine. But you still want to use a wine that you enjoy drinking on your own. Other Spanish variety of wines that work great on tinto de verano are Garnacha, Mencia and often red blends.

In my case, I love to use Pinot Noir even though it’s not a Spanish classic but it’s the red wine I drink the most so if I have a bottle already opened, then I’ll use a glass of that to mix with soda.

You want the wine to be light, fruity and on the sweeter side! No need to use aged wines, young wines are great for this drink.

What soda do you use to make tinto de verano?

Well, this might be a bit of a personal experience and I hope to get the opinion of different people in comments.

Most places we visited in Spain, use a lemon or lemon-lime type soda to mix with the wines. We saw people mixing it with Fanta Limon (different that USA Fanta), Schwepps Lemon or a local lemon soda called La Casera.

When we got back to Miami, I tried recreating this famous Spanish drink and here are my results:

• Italian lemon sodas work great to make tinto de verano – I have tried the Whole Foods Italian soda, Aldi Italian lemon soda, San Pellegrino Limonata etc. I feel that the Italian sodas have an elegant carbonation that is not too bubbly.
• Fever Tree mixers work great too.
• Sprite or 7Up didn’t work for me, the taste is too bubbly and it overpowers the wine.
• If you can find Fanta Limon in specialty stores try it.

Don’t forget to use plenty of ice and slices of lemon. We noticed some places would serve it with 1 lemon slice and 1 orange slice and some other places just with lemon. So use your own preference for garnishes!

Pitcher (Carafe) or one drink at a time?

Since we are using soda to mix this drink up, you can easily make it one at a time as needed. However, if you have several people at the table that want to have a glass of this delicious red wine drink, than you can serve a pitcher of it for immediate consumption. Bring all the glasses with lots of ice on them and a slice of lemon than pour from the pitcher over the ice.

It’s important to keep the ratio of wine to soda 1 to 1, other than that just enjoy and don’t overthink it:).

If you’d like to save this recipe for later, please pin any image from this post to your boards in Pinterest so you can easily retrieve it in the future:). Thank you for reading my blog!

More Summer Drinks

Here are some more recipes you might want to check out this summer:)

• Guava Margarita
• Frozen Watermelon Margarita
• Strawberry Limeade (non alcoholic)
• Raspberry Lemonade
• Citrus Sangria