Peach Sangria
For a party last weekend, James and I made peach sangria. Most people, I have found, are skeptical when I tell them that I am going to serve them sangria. They have, perhaps, a mental image of a cloying wine kool aid, syrupy, carbonated, disgusting. But sangria can be also be beautiful, subtle, sophisticated... if only you treat her like a lady. First, in my mind, there is no room in red sangria for fruit juice or carbonation*. Rather I like to make it as an infusion of fruit in wine, fortified with spirits. In this instance I followed my go-to recipe, which I am going to share with you now, but with one modification; last time I made this sangria, I had not yet learned the secrets of oleo saccharum, that most unctuous of syrups, and I felt a strong intuition that it would improve the subtle orange qualities of the drink.(*We did a white sangria not too long ago, which contained both fruit juice and sparkling wine, but it was a different beast all together. Really, "white sangria" is a bit of an oxymoron.)Take a look here, feast your eyes on all those glorious citrus oils floating on its surface:
Peach Sangria6 Bottles of Your Favorite Rioja500 ml Triple Sec (Cointreau)500 ml Cognac (Salignac)Oleo Saccharum of 12 Oranges6 lbs of Peaches, peeled and cut into chunksAllow the mixture to infuse over night, and then top with two sliced lemons right before serving. Pour over ice as you serve.
The brandy in this recipe is critical, for it adds notes of wooden complexity that give the drink a three dimensional quality on the palate. Without it, the punch tastes a bit flat. What is perhaps most striking about this sangria is its dryness. Though it acquires a mellow peach roundness, it retains the dry tannin notes from the rioja, a wine which, as a genre, has hints of strawberry and vanilla that marry well with orange and peach. Whenever I need to serve a lot of drinks in a pinch, this is my method. It does not work in the winter months, when peaches are scarce, but in summer it is perfect for a trip to the beach or an afternoon barbecue.Indeed, these were the last peaches of the season. I have played with the idea of infusing spices into the wine for winter, but I'm not sure if that can still properly be called sangria. Cheers!