Almost all winemakers claim, that dilution wine with water is a reprehensible spoilage of the wine. In the Middle Ages dishonest innkeeper could even fail his throat for diluting wine with water. So lets go back to history of wine spritz.
Ancient times
According to contemporary literatura dilution wine with water was quite common in ancient Greek. Wine was the basic part of everyday dinning and it was usually drunk mixed together with water.
Greeks also liked experiments with wine, they added to it different flavors – mostly resin, various herbs, strong spices or honey.
In ancient Rome, they also diluted wine with tepid or cool water and often added salt. Members of the higher society mixed the drink at a ratio of 3 parts water and 2 parts of wine. For flavoring they used various herbs such as myrtle, mint, thyme and pine resin.
Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages ordinary people did not drink strong and fine wines, it was a privilege of the nobility. Common wines had 6 – 8 % of alcohol, but they were drunk a lot, instead of poor-quality water. Even now we use the word „pančované víno“ which means wine mixed with water but sold as normal wine. And this word originated just from those times. It was even considerted a crime in the Middle Ages. Monarchs in the Czech lands payed attention to the quality of wines and for example Czech King Vladislav II. ordered in 1497 to check around 16 October every year all wines in Prague to verify, if they had not been falsified.
Wine spritz today
Today the combination of wine with soda, water or mineral water is considered as a wine spritz. But only minority of people knows that it is not good idea to mix wine and mineral water. Minerals contained in mineral water can react with substances in the wine and thus reduce the overall quality and taste of final beverages.
So if you want a spritz, please use only soda or normal water. Regarding wine, I recommend you rather white or pink wine with a higher acidity to create beverage fresh and easily drinkable. Definitely it would be a pity to use higher quality wine (in Czech přívlastková vína), it is enough to use barrel wine. And in this case maybe the winemakers will not be angry, that we are spoiling their skills.
Very positive stuff about wine spritz is, that it has lower amount of alcohol and thus also calories. So if you are on diet, wine spritz is a great alternative.