Summer in Texas is crazy hot! I know exactly what I want to cool myself down…a refreshing spritzer. A spritzer is like iced sunshine in a wine glass.

Spritzer is German for spray/squirt/sprinkle/splash…all verbs that go beautifully with summer.

Wine spritzers are light, refreshing, and invigorating on hot Texas summer days. They provide just the relief you crave…quenching your thirst with a light and citrusy taste.

I enjoy reading books on my patio. Now is the perfect time while the gardenias are blooming and the promise of summer is on the way. I remember one hot Texas summer I read Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. As I read I sipped on a spritzer and smelled the gardenias. Ever since then I associate spritzers with the romance of summer, the inspiration of the classics and the intoxicating allure of gardenias.

Edith Wharton wrote, “Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.” Sipping on a spritzer is the perfect way to “drink the day.”

Try a rosé or white wine and add seltzer to your liking, then serve with a sliver of lime or lemon. Make it fancy with melon balls, rasberries, or lavender. It’s an elegant way to cool off in the hot sun and it’s more hydrating and invigorating.

Rosé is my favorite because it looks like the kind of drink that I imagine Greta Garbo would have had spending the summers in Ravello, Italy. It’s a pretty, pink and feminine.  I imagine glamorous ladies of the 30’s sipping spritzers and it makes me feel cooler.

It should come as no surprise that people drink more in the summer than they do at any other time of the year. Summer is a time to relax and people entertain more. The longer days give us more time to find the glamour in different ways of relaxing.

Turn down the day’s heat with the coolness of a spritzer.

My kind of summer…Greta Garbo with Cecil Beaton