wines, sparkling and still , have a long and varied cocktail history. While not as frequently used as fortified or, especially, aromatized wines, still wines from Bordeaux and burgundies, to Rieslings and Chablis, to Ohio catawbas and California cabernets have been featured in a number of popular drinks. These “light wines”—as they were often called to distinguish them from the heavier, stronger, fortified wines—were used in some eighteenth-century punches but saw their greatest use in the early Victorian era, when wine-based cups such as the Claret Cup and Moselle Cup were the height of fashion in British society and, to a lesser degree, in America. Americans, however, were as likely to incorporate the wine into a Mint Julep or float it on top of a Whisky Sour, as in the famous New York Sour. See julep and New York Sour.
There is a much richer history of including sparkling wine in cocktails. In fact, many common drinks can be topped with, and arguably improved by, a splash of bubbly. This works particularly well with punches such as Regent’s Punch and Chatham Artillery Punch and cocktails from the sour family, including the Margarita and Daiquiri. See Chatham Artillery Punch; Regent’s Punch; and sour. Perhaps the most popular use is in the French 75, which can be made with a base of either gin or cognac, lemon juice, and sparkling wine, although in recent years the prosecco-topped Aperol Spritz may have edged it out. See Aperol Spritz and French 75.
You can also often successfully substitute sparkling wine in drinks that call for sparkling water or beer, like using bubbly in place of the club soda in a Mojito (this yields Audrey Saunders’s modern classic the Old Cuban). See Mojito and Saunders, Audrey. The historic Italian cocktail the Negroni Sbagliato, or “mistaken Negroni” (invented at Milan’s Bar Basso in 1972) is simply a Negroni but made with prosecco replacing the gin and carbonated water. See Negroni.
Traditionally, the addition of champagne or sparkling wine to a concoction is noted by the addition of the term “imperial” to its name, just as making it with wine instead of water or beer made it “royal.” See royal.
There are also a handful of other modern and historic drinks that call for wine, including the Black Velvet (Guinness stout beer and sparkling wine) and the St-Germain Cocktail (St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur and still or sparkling wine). See Black Velvet and Cooper Spirits.
By: Noah Rothbaum