23 Red Wine Cocktails for Summer

Summertime Cocktails with Red Wine

While mulled wine is a go-to winter red wine cocktail, the red wine spritzer is one of the most popular red wine cocktails for the summer months. It’s also one of the easiest to make, and there’s a good chance you have everything you need already.

You just need a bottle of red wine, some soda water, and some orange slices for garnish. There’s no need for a fancy, expensive red wine, a $10 pinot noir, merlot, or Cabernet Sauvignon will do the trick just fine.

Hailing from the Basque Country, this simple yet refreshing drink is made from red wine mixed with Coca-Cola. Kalimotxo is the original Euskera (Basque) language spelling, but you may also see it written as calimocho in Castilian Spanish.

Whichever spelling you prefer, it’s another simple red wine cocktail to make. Simply pour equal measures of red wine and Coca-Cola, and then add a splash of freshly squeezed lemon juice, a few cubes of ice, and a lemon slice to garnish. 

Keeping things simple and the ingredient list short, a bloody pepper is a basic blend of red wine and Dr. Pepper soda and is a variation of the kalimotxo. 

You just need to half-fill a large red wine glass with Dr. Pepper, then top it up with whichever bottle of red wine you have on hand. Very easy and very refreshing, especially when served ice cold.

In addition to being pretty easy to put together, these ice-cold red wine slushies are great for cooling down on a hot summer day. Grab a bottle of red wine, such as a red Moscato, frozen strawberries, frozen blackberries, frozen raspberries, some simple syrup, and a bottle of Grand Marnier.

Simply blitz the ingredients in a blender until smooth and freeze for a few hours before serving. If you rather the final drink was seed-free, you can also strain it before freezing.

For a healthy red wine cocktail, these skinny spritzers are both low on calories and high on flavor. You can use a nice red blend for the wine content, and you’ll also need some fresh orange juice, orange bitters, mineral water, and some blood orange slices for garnish.

If you want to turn it into a sparkling wine cocktail, you can switch out the mineral water for club soda or sparkling water.

When the strawberries come into season and are more readily available in your local stores, it’s a sure sign that summer is on the way. And these refreshing strawberry red wine cocktails are perfect for sipping as you watch the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

For each drink, you’ll need to thinly slice two fresh strawberries and add them to the glass. Then add one part red wine to two parts chilled sparkling water. You can then add a third strawberry as a garnish to each glass.

If it’s too hot to faff about making a whole batch of sangria, a quick-and-easy tinto de verano may be the ideal alternative. Very popular in Spain, a tinto de verano is usually made with a fruity red wine, like a Spanish Garnacha or a pinot noir, and lemon Fanta. 

If you can’t find the lemon Fanta, you could also use lemonade and soda water, a lemon-lime soda, or even a splash of Sprite.

This refreshing summer cocktail is made from a fruity red wine, like a pinot noir, a dash of an orange liqueur, such as triple sec or Cointreau, and a slightly spicy ginger beer. 

Simply add all the ingredients to a large bowl or pitcher and mix, then pour into individual ice-filled wine glasses to serve. Simple and very refreshing in the height of summer.

You could also change the ginger beer to ginger ale if you prefer. Ginger ale has a mellower flavor and is a little less spicy than ginger beer but with a little more carbonation.

If you enjoy a sparkling red wine like a Lambrusco, these wine cocktails from Martha Stewart may just become your drink of the summer. You can start by rimming some rocks glasses with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar by wetting the rims with orange juice.

Then grab a large pitcher, and add in some red wine, orange-flavored soda, and bourbon. Add in plenty of ice, and prepare some orange wedges to use as garnish.

The New York Sour is a riff on the classic whiskey sour cocktail recipe and includes a red wine float at the end. To mix this delicious cocktail, you’ll need whiskey, fresh lemon juice, maple syrup (or simple syrup), egg white, and the obligatory red wine.

Add all the ingredients, with the exception of the red wine, to a cocktail shaker, and give it a hearty shake, then add some ice cubes and shake again. Strain this mixture into an ice-filled rocks glass, and then pour the red wine over the back of a spoon so it floats on top.

The Cabernet cobbler cocktail utilizes the summery blackcurrant notes of a full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon to create a delightful red wine cocktail. It’s also very simple to make, with just a few basic ingredients and no need for any fancy bar equipment.

The first step is to dissolve some fine sugar into some lemon juice in the bottom of your wine glass. Then add some soda water and crushed ice before pouring the Cabernet Sauvignon and stirring gently. Garnish with an orange slice and a twist of orange peel, and enjoy.

For a refreshing summer drink flavored with summer berries, this raspberry-infused spritzer is hard to beat. You can use frozen raspberries, but fresh fruit is always better, and you’ll also need a lemon-flavored soda, such as La Croix LimonCello, orange bitters, and a bottle of your favorite red wine.

Pop a couple of raspberries in the bottom of each glass and slightly squash them with a spoon, and add a couple of ice cubes. Add equal measures of the red wine and lemon seltzer water, then a splash of orange bitters, and finally add a sprig of rosemary for decoration.

This summery wine cocktail is ideal for the end of your lawn party or al fresco summer dinner party. The peach cubes give it a dessert feel, and the red wine choice is a Barolo red, which goes well with grilled meats.

You’ll also need the freshly squeezed juice of one lemon and some fresh mint leaves, as well as fresh mint sprigs to use as garnish. Combine the wine and lemon juice in a mixing bowl and add the shredded mint leaves. Next, dice the peaches before adding them to the glass, and then add in the wine and lemon juice mixture. Decorate with the fresh mint sprigs, and sip as your summer barbecue digests.

If you want to add a splash of Mexican magic to your red wine cocktails, these tasty tequila-based drinks combine the complex flavors of pink grapefruit, agave syrup, and lime juice with tequila and red wine. For the red wine, a fruity Beaujolais will work well.

Grab your cocktail shaker, and add the tequila, fresh lime juice, agave syrup, red wine, and a few ice cubes. Strain this into cocktail glasses over more ice, and then top up with the grapefruit soda. If you don’t have any agave syrup, you can use simple syrup instead.

Port Wine Cocktails

Vinho do Porto, or Port wine in English, is a Portuguese fortified wine, usually made from a sweet red wine. Making the liquid part of these Port spitzers is very simple – Port and soda water – but the garnish requires a little bit of preparation in advance.

The garnish is made by soaking dried fruit in Port and lemon juice overnight. Fruits to use include apricot halves, pitted plums, red cherries, figs, and apple slices. The next day, you can then thread these fruit pieces onto wooden skewers, then pour a quarter cup of Port and half a cup of club soda into each tall glass, such as a high ball glass.

A refreshing Port-based cocktail to help cool your next pool party or barbecue down, the Trafalgar punch calls for Tawny Port, Armagnac, and white rum for the booze and some lemons, sugar, and water to mix.

Peel and juice the lemons, and let the peel steep in the juice together with the sugar. Let that sit for an hour or so, then combine all the ingredients and refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

Red Wine Sangria Recipes

Sangria originates from the Iberian Peninsula and is essentially a red wine punch with fresh fruits and often augmented with additional spirits, such as brandy or a fruity liqueur. The wine of choice is usually a Rioja, but not a super expensive one. 

For the fruits, grab some oranges, lemons, green apples, peaches, and apricots. Then you’ll also need a stick of cinnamon, some soda water, simple syrup, and a couple of ounces of brandy or vermouth. There are no hard and fast rules, though, so you can experiment as you choose to.

For a variation on the sangria theme, you can use cherry kombucha to prepare this kombucha sangria recipe. In addition to kombucha and red wine, you’ll need Aperol, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and some lemon slices to use as a garnish.

Simply combine the ingredients in a Collins glass, give a little stir, and add the garnish before serving.

If you can’t decide between a red or white wine cocktail for your summer party, this sangria recipe can save you the headache by using both. For the white wine, the recipe calls for sparkling wine, such as Prosecco, and for the red wine, it recommends a Merlot or Pinot Noir.

In a large pitcher or fruit bowl, combine red wine, orange slices, orange liqueur, and apple juice and refrigerate for a few hours. When your guests arrive, pour some of the sangria with the fruit into your glasses, and top up with Prosecco. If you’d rather keep the alcohol content down, you can substitute the Prosecco for sparkling apple cider, and you could also add some chopped apples.

The addition of fresh berries in your wine cocktails always adds a little bit of extra summer flavor. In addition to the awesome flavor, the blueberries give this sangria a beautiful deep color, which is accentuated with the use of a pinkish-red Cara cara orange.

First up, you’ll need to prepare some blueberry syrup, which is basically simple syrup with added blueberries. Then grab a 750ml bottle of your favorite red blend, some Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur, and some lemon-lime soda or club soda.

While the existence of ‘leftover wine’ may be open to debate, should you find some, you can use it to make these individual berry-infused sangria servings. For each serving, you’ll need four ounces of red wine and one ounce of vodka. To that, you can add half a cup of a mixture of blueberries, sliced strawberries, raspberries, and a half ounce of an orange liqueur.

For the orange liqueur, you can use Cointreau or triple sec, and you’re to add some bubbles by adding a splash of club soda. You can also prepare these individual servings in advance and then refrigerate them until your guests arrive.

A sangria is a blend of two cocktail recipes – a sangria and a margarita. To put these together, mix the orange, lime juice, tequila, triple sec, and wine in a large pitcher, then stir gently and leave it to rest in the fridge for a few hours.

In the meantime, you can busy yourself making the lime sugar and then use it for ‘salting’ the rims of your glasses. For this, you’ll need the zest of a lime mixed in with some fine sugar on a plate, and then moisten the glass rims with the juice from the lime and invert them into the lime zest and sugar mixture.

While sangria wine cocktails are already a summer staple, turning the classic recipe into a slushie makes it even better at helping you beat the heat. This sangria recipe also comes with two alternative ways of making it – one when you have plenty of time and one for when you need to throw it together a little more quickly.

The slower option calls for freezing the mixture overnight, while the quick-and-easy method calls for crushed ice. To make sangria slushies, you’ll need a bottle of sweet red wine, a cup of pomegranate juice, a quarter cup each of Grand Marnier and brandy, some simple syrup for sweetness, and some frozen blueberries.

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