Easy Red Wine Sangria With Sprite (2024)

By: Wanda Simone | Last Updated: March 30, 2024 (Originally published: October 27, 2014)

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Red wine sangria is the perfect drink for your next party! It’s easy to make, can be made ahead of time and can be tailored to your taste. All you need is a couple of bottles of red wine, some chopped fruit, and a little sparkle.

This recipe is similar to a traditional red wine sangria, but not exactly.

Since it doesn’t contain any rum (or other liquor), it’s a little lighter and goes over very well with my guests that don’t like to drink too much alcohol.

Like all Sangrias, it is also a make-ahead drink that is easy to put into a “help-yourself” drink dispenser. Which makes it perfect for parties.

If you’re going to let people serve themselves, just make sure you put it somewhere that you can wipe up the inevitable drips that will occur.

Ingredients

• Fresh fruit: 1 apple, 1 orange, 1 lemon, 1 lime
• Wine: 2 bottles of red wine. Since it provides a lot of the taste to the drink, make sure to get one you like. In other words, this isn’t the time to go for cheap grocery store wine. But you don’t need a really expensive one either, since it will be getting mixed. Since Sangria is a Spanish drink, I like to use a Spanish red wine such as Rioja to keep some of the authentic flavor.
• Flavoring: 2packages Crystal Light lemonade flavor drink mix – These come as crystals (something like kool aid) and you need the size that makes 2 quarts of lemonade.
• Soda: 2 liter bottle of lemon-lime soda such as Sprite or 7-Up

Substitutions:

• You can use pretty much any kind of fruit you want in Sangria, so feel free to eliminate or add different varieties as desired.
• For a less sweet drink, substitute club soda for the sprite or 7-Up.

How to make sangria With Red Wine and Sprite

This recipe makes about 20 5-ounce glasses.

Prep work

Most of the time in making sangria comes from the prep work. So get ready for some chopping.

First, wash all of the fruit (including the orange, lime and lemon). We’ll be leaving the skins on so you want to make sure they’re clean.

Then core and slice or chop the apple.

Slice or chop the orange, lime and lemon.

One caveat to leaving the rind on: If you are going to be soaking the fruit in the wine for more than a couple of hours, you’ll want to peel the lime. Otherwise, it can add a bitter taste to the drink that you don’t want.

Put the soda in the refrigerator to chill.

Combine the fruit and wine

Add the fruit to a large pitcher, drink dispenser or punch bowl.

To save myself time later, I like to use the same pitcher that I’m going to serve it in. But if you don’t have one that’s big enough, you can mix it in a bowl or pot for now and transfer it to whatever you’re serving it in later.

Sprinkle the lemonade crystals over top of the fruit.

Then pour in the red wine and stir.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

I don’t like to leave the fruit in the wine for more than a few hours because they can start to get soggy.

So I usually make this in the morning of the party. But you can make it the night before if you’re not too picky on what the fruit looks like.

Serve

Just before serving, add the cold soda to your wine and fruit mixture. Don’t stir otherwise the soda will go flat.

I don’t add ice to the pitcher since it melts and dilutes the drink.

If you want to serve it really cold, you can add ice to the glasses as you serve it. Or leave an ice bucket beside the pitcher so everyone can help themselves.

Having said that, this red wine sangria tastes quite good even if it isn’t ice cold. So I often drink it without any ice at all.

Frequently asked questions

Other sangria recipes you might like

• The best fall sangria recipes
• Strawberry and kiwi sangria
• Berries and limes sangria
• Triple berry rose sangria
• The best summer sangrias

Or browse all of our sangria recipes.

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