I typically always drink red wine – it seems to be as a person with type 1 diabetes, just about the only thing I can drink that a) I enjoy the flavor and variety, but more importantly b) it has zero impact on my blood sugar. Bonus, it goes well with cooking and Frank 😉

This 4th of July we had friends over, played yard games (dubbed the 1st annual Swanson yard game olympics), grilled (read: grazed on food allllllll day) and drank. It was such a fun day!

Because I didn’t want to drink red wine all day – too “heavy” and it was warm and slightly humid, I decided to try and make a more minimal-to-none, diabetes blood sugar spiking version. I’m also not a huge fan of sugary drinks in general, they give me crazy headaches and make me feel puffy and gross (especially the day after). I googled all sorts of recipes and didn’t care for any of them, so I ventured out on my own. The result was a light, refreshing, flavorful sangria that I loved and our guests did as well! Plus I got a new sangria pitcher out of it 🙂

Sangria

• 1 bottle merlot
• 1 bottle raspberry road (Carlos Creek Winery – wine tasted here recently)
• 1/2 cup blueberries
• 1 cup quartered strawberries
• 2 sliced oranges
• Club soda

Combine everything above except the club soda into a pitcher and refrigerate for at least 6 hours (overnight would be fine). When ready to enjoy, pour into a sangria pitcher and add 4 (mini) 10 oz bottles of club soda. My family recently wine tasted at Carlos Creek Winery in Minnesota, so I picked up a bottle of their raspberry road for this recipe, but I think any fruitier flavored wine would work. [Disclaimer: I almost added some raw honey, but decided before I did to let the fruit sit in the wine and see how it tasted = result, no honey needed].

Light, refreshing, flavorful and especially on a warm summer day 🙂