Wine Coolers: What Are They And How Are They Made?

A wine cooler is wine mixed with fruit juice, sugar and carbonated water, bottled at low alcohol and served cold. For a few years in the 1980s it was the fastest-growing drink in America. Then it disappeared almost as fast, and most of what still carries the name today is not made with wine at all. Here is what a wine cooler is, what happened to it, and four ways to make one at home.

What is a wine cooler?

The basic formula is wine, juice, sweetener and fizz. It descends from the wine spritzer (white wine and soda water) and from the homemade version people were mixing on California beaches in the 1970s: cheap white wine cut with lemon-lime soda or fruit juice over ice. Commercial coolers packaged that idea in single-serve bottles at 4 to 6% ABV, about the strength of beer, with fruit flavor doing most of the work.

The history

The first commercial wine cooler was California Cooler, created by Michael Crete and Stuart Bewley in Lodi, California. Crete had been mixing white wine, citrus and club soda for friends at the beach; in 1981 the two of them began bottling it, at first by hand. By 1984 California Cooler was selling around 10 million cases a year and had been sold to Brown-Forman.

Every large drinks company followed. Gallo launched Bartles & Jaymes in 1985 with a famous ad campaign built around two fictional old men on a porch; Seagram’s, Sun Country and dozens of others piled in until there were more than 100 brands on shelves. At the peak in 1987, wine coolers were a billion-dollar category and accounted for roughly one in five bottles of wine sold in the US.

Why it took off

Timing, mostly. California had a wine glut in the early 1980s: production had expanded through the 1970s, a strong dollar made imports cheap, and growers were sitting on surplus grapes and bulk wine that coolers could soak up. The drinks were low in alcohol, which fit the decade’s mood, and they were sweet, fizzy and sold in beer-style bottles, which made them easy to sell to people who did not drink wine.

Why it collapsed

Two things. The fad ran its course, and by the early 1990s the next one, clear malt beverages like Zima, had taken its place; Zima sold 1.3 million barrels in 1994 while cooler sales fell. And in 1991 the federal excise tax on wine rose from 17 cents to $1.07 a gallon, which made a wine base far more expensive than a malt base. Most brands quietly switched: Bartles & Jaymes and Seagram’s Escapes have been malt beverages, not wine, for decades, even though people still call them wine coolers.

Wine coolers today

True wine-based coolers are now a small category. What exists is less sweet than the 1980s versions and often built around herbal, bitter or botanical flavors; canned wine spritzers and sangrias are the closest modern relatives. The easier route is to make one at home, where you control the wine, the sugar and the fizz.

Wine cooler recipes

Peach wine cooler pitcher

Dry white wine, peaches, honey and a little brandy, topped with soda water. Makes about eight servings.

• 2 cups frozen unsweetened sliced peaches, thawed
• 1/2 cup brandy
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 lemon, very thinly sliced
• 1 bottle dry white wine
• 1 1/2 cups carbonated water, chilled
• Ice

Combine the peaches, brandy, honey and lemon slices in a large pitcher and stir in the wine. Refrigerate for two to four hours. Add the sparkling water just before serving and pour over ice in wine glasses.

Watermelon white zinfandel cooler

Sweet and tart, one glass at a time. Multiply for a pitcher.

• 4 oz chilled white zinfandel
• 2 oz watermelon liqueur or watermelon schnapps
• 4 oz lemon-lime soda
• Watermelon wedge for garnish
• Ice

Fill a glass halfway with ice, add the wine, liqueur and soda, stir and garnish.

Cucumber melon wine cooler

Less sweet than the others, with frozen melon standing in for ice. Needs a few hours of lead time.

• 1 cantaloupe
• 1 honeydew melon
• 1/2 large cucumber
• 1 cup vodka
• 4 oz dry white wine per glass
• Club soda, optional

Scoop the melons into balls with a melon baller, spread them on a tray and freeze for at least three hours. Put six to eight cucumber slices in a jar with the vodka and refrigerate for three hours or up to three days. To serve, drop four or five frozen melon balls into a tall glass, add 1 oz of the cucumber vodka and 4 oz of white wine, and top with club soda if you want fizz.

Raspberry rosé cooler

Works with an off-dry red as well, but rosé keeps it bright.

• 4 oz rosé
• 4 oz club soda
• 1 oz Chambord or another raspberry liqueur
• Fresh raspberries for garnish
• Ice

Build over ice in a tall glass, stir gently and drop in the raspberries.

The short version

A wine cooler is wine, juice, sugar and soda water at beer strength. It was a 1980s phenomenon built on a California wine surplus, killed off by a 1991 tax change and the next fad, and most of what carries the name today is malt-based. The homemade version is still worth making, and you get to decide how sweet it is.

Saucey delivers the wine, liqueurs and mixers for all of these in as fast as 25 mins in the cities we serve. Browse wine on Saucey.

Related Articles