We are enjoying American’s discovery and appreciation of Brachetto wine. As we wrote recently, it is an aromatic red sweet Italian sparkling wine that is different and intriguing. As wine expert Allison Levine puts it: “it is not a complicated wine but also is not simple.” Brachetto d’Acqui doesn’t really “fit into any box” in terms of aromas and taste. No matter what the palate is of the person, when they try it for the first time, there is a split second in which their brain is processing, trying to figure out what kind of wine this is.

Almost everyone who tries Brachetto likes it: there is a minority of wine drinkers that have their taste buds trained to expect a wine to have a certain taste profile and admit that they don’t like it. When our founder, Sheila Donohue, was giving out tastes recently of Ivaldi’s Brachetto, even though the producer makes his sweet wines with only a touch of sweetness and structure to balance. she recognizes that the sweetness in this wine still can put off some wine drinkers.

So, she thought, why not try using Brachetto to make a red wine cocktail? This way the sweetness of the wine could take a back seat, yet its aromas and flavors could still be enjoyed. Think a low alcohol wine cocktail, great for an aperitivo.

After all, wine cocktail drinks have a long tradition in Europe, such as the Spritz, which we first shared in this article. Using a wine as an ingredient in a cocktail certainly diminishes the aromas and flavors of the wine. However, certain wines do well at blending in with other ingredients to make a cocktail with wine, like Prosecco in a spritz recipe. So, Sheila went on a mission: to experiment making a wine spritzer cocktail with Brachetto Acqui. Let’s find out what she uncovered.

Finds at the Farmers Market

First stop was to the Farmers Market to find some fresh fruits and herbs whose flavors would complement the aromas and taste of roses, strawberry, hibiscus, etc., that you get in the aromatic Brachetto d Acqui wine. In this case, Sheila ventured to the Ventura Farmers’ Market. Ventura California is an area blessed with great conditions for agriculture and farming (not just for food, but also for wine production, by the way). Being still a newbie to California, she wanted to discover some locally grown fruit that would be potentially good ingredients for a wine cocktail with Brachetto.

Orange from a 100 year old tree

One of her first discoveries was meeting Farmer Ed with an orange that came from a 100 year old tree. That resonates a lot with us, as many of our farmer artisan wine producers rely on and foster old vineyards… but 100 years, that’s old even for Italy!

Of course, Europe was hit with phylloxera which destroyed most of the vineyards in Europe from late 1800s to early 1900s. One of our producers who has old vineyards is Case Corini, Lorenzo Corino’s family regenerative farming biodynamic winery, whose Barla vineyard will be 100 years old in a couple of years.

Farmer Ed said that this heirloom orange is super sweet and juicy. While Sheila was not necessarily looking for a fruit to add more sweetness, she was intrigued and bought one to try in the Brachetto cocktail experiment.

All Sorts of Lemons and Limes

When Sheila first got to SoCal 6 years ago, her first new discovery of a citrus fruit was Meyers lemon, which is like a cross between a lemon and an orange. Turns out, according to Wikipedia, it originated in China. Many in SoCal have Meyers lemon trees in their backyard, so seeing it recently at the farmers market wasn’t a new thing for her. Still, it is a great citrus to use in cooking, plus is a good candidate ingredient for a Brachetto spritz. After all, the most common fruit you see in a spritz in Italy is a slice of orange.

She discovered other types of lemons at the farmers’ market in Ventura, like the Lisbon lemon, which is supposedly more juicy, then the more well known Eureka lemon. Then she came to a farmer’s stand that had 2 different types of limes: a sweet lime and a smaller Mexican lime. She grabbed all of these to have on hand for the Brachetto wine cocktail spritzer experiment.

A Native Herb Plant

Sheila did some research ahead of time, getting wine cocktail recipe ideas from The Consortium for Brachetto d’Acqui. One recipe which got her attention has lavender syrup in it. So, at the farmers’ market she also went in search of lavender. While not having any luck finding lavender, she discovered an herbal plant, called Yerba Buena, that is native to Ventura. Like in her research of wines (and olive oils) around the world, she leans towards native grapes and native cultivars, since they usually express themselves best when grown in the place where they came from. So, naturally, this drew her like a bee to a flower. Nathan Whitman, of Pan’s Garden Nursery in Ojai, encouraged her to taste it, which is reminiscent of mint. Mint aromatics would complement nicely the strawberry and hibiscus flavors of Brachetto wine, so she got a Yerba Buena plant to plant in her garden.

Last But Not Least, Strawberries

Ventura County farmers produce a good portion of the country’s supply of strawberries, with strawberries being the largest crop produced by this agricultural region. Venturans pride themselves so much in strawberries that the annual California Strawberry Festival takes place in Ventura County and is the most talked about festival in the county. With strawberry being the primary flavor of Brachetto, and, in fact, the most common food pairing with Brachetto is strawberry, she picked up some from a local family farmer that specializes in strawberries.

The Experiments

Armed with these fresh fruits and herbs, along with a bottle of Ivaldi’s Susbel Brachetto d’Acqui, she was ready to start experiments to make wine cocktail recipes with them.

Nicki’s Brachetto Spritz

The first experiment was with a bartender, Nicki, who was working at a wedding where Ivaldi Dario Brachetto d’Acqui was being served. Once Nicki tasted this aromatic slightly sweet red sparkling wine, her face lit up and she immediately had an idea of what cocktail she would make with it.

She started with crushing some blackberries, then squeezed a slice of orange and mixed both together, then she poured about 1/2 glass full of Brachetto, then added ice. She then added about 1/4 glass of Prosecco to top it off and grated fresh orange zest on top. She had Sheila try it; it was a well balanced slightly sweet blend of berry fruit and wine with the orange zest giving it a nice citrusy offset to the berry taste. Sheila named the cocktail Nicki’s Brachetto Spritz in honor of the talented barista who created this delightful wine cocktail. It was an fun and promising start to the wine cocktail experiments!

More Brachetto Spritzes

With this first experiment a success, Sheila got a small group of friends together to try some more experiments making a wine cocktail with Brachetto. Inspired by Nicki, the barista’s, suggestion we narrowed down the options to focus on 3 ingredients, Brachetto, Prosecco and sparkling water/club soda as the basis for the wine cocktails. Basically, the concept is similar to an Aperol Spritz, but instead substituting the Aperol with Brachetto. Then from there add fruit and herbs to improvise and create your own new version of a Brachetto Spritz for a new series of aperitivo drinks.

The key to a good Brachetto spritz, as in any Spritz, is using really good “raw materials.” So the Brachetto needs to be a top one, like Ivaldi’s which was on VinePair list of Best Sweet Wines from last year, along with a really good Prosecco, and in fact, we chose Col del Balt whose Prosecco made it on VinePair’s list of Best Prosecco with the highest rating of all.

Then depending on one’s personal taste preferences, e.g., preferring a more sweet or more dry Spritz, different proportions of Brachetto, Prosecco and sparkling water are added.

The Buena Spritz

Inspired by the discovery of the local native plant, Yerba Buena, which has a pleasant mint flavor, along with Mexican limes, which look like a lemon but taste tart like a lime, these 2 ingredients were the main additions to the Brachetto, Prosecco and sparkling wine to create a pleasant, light and slightly tart version of the Brachetto Spritz. And it got a name, the Buena Spritz, thanks to the Yerba Buena ingredient and giving credit to where it was invented, in San Buenaventura, i.e., Ventura California.

Then Sheila’s group of friends started to get into the task at hand and created their own versions of a Brachetto spritz.

The Megan Spritz

Megan started with the Heirloom orange from the 100 year old tree and squeezed a slice of that into her glass. Then with her taste preferences leaning more towards dry than sweet, she added about 3 parts of Prosecco, a dry Pet Nat version by Col del Balt, and then 1 part Brachetto and 1 part sparkling water, creating her own version of the Brachetto spritz with a pretty rose pink and orange color.

The Lynn Spritz

Lynn, like Megan, also preferred her Brachetto spritz with more Prosecco; along with a dash of Brachetto and sparkling water, her spritz became a light pink color. Instead of oranges, like Megan she added a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, Mexican lime and Yerba Buena to create all together different version of a Brachetto spritz, the Lynn Spritz!

The Happy Spritz

Sheila went at it and instead she added equal parts of Brachetto, Prosecco and sparkling water. Then she added Yerba Buena mint and squeezed in a slice of Meyers lemon. The final touch, inspired by bartender Nicki, was to grate Meyers lemon rind on top. Given the sentiments of “happiness in a glass” echoed in our article about Brachetto wine, she called it the Happy Spritz.

Ready to Experiment?

We hope we got you curious enough to try some wine cocktails of your own with Brachetto, and Prosecco too. Remember that the trick is good quality ingredients, which we have, from small farmer artisans like Ivaldi Dario and Col del Balt. One of our goals with Vero is to discover new and delicious wines and foods you never had before. We seek out farm to glass wines (and olive oils) that are new to the US market and sell them to businesses and consumers across the US:

• If you are a distributor reach out to us introduce our highly curated portfolio of one of a kind small production wines to your state.

• We sell to wine stores and restaurants in certain states - contact us to learn more.

• If our farm crafted wines and olive oils are not in your local shop or restaurant, you can buy wine online here, and we’ll ship it to you, including wine gifts.

• We also have an award winning wine club for true wine explorers that are seeking to continually discover unique, sustainable and authentic small production wines they never had. These are wines selected by our sommeliers and curated for each box.

• We do corporate gifts and sommelier guided wine tastings. Email us and we’ll tailor unique and sustainable corporate gift ideas.