Blouge: The perfect summer wine for cool moments

The resulting bottles are lighter, brighter

By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 By Emily SaladinoMay 27, 2026 DrinksBlouge Is Our Summer Wine CrushThis emerging category is the best thing to happen to chilled reds since the ice bucket.

The resulting bottles are lighter, brighter, and lower in alcohol than heavyweights such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Barolo. Blouge tends to be relatively affordable, too. You can drink it unaccompanied or alongside a range of foods including cheeseboards, tinned fish, spicy noodles, and pretty much anything that comes off the grill at a cookout. Don't be fooled by the goofy-sounding name.

For 2024, the last year, the French label says that making red and white wines with a low-consolidated wine

Some would use their fruit to make field blends like palhete, Portugal's answer to blouge, with roots dating back to the 12th century. In more recent millennia ⁇ and right up to the present ⁇ winemakers in France ⁇ s Southern Rhône either blend or coferment red and white grapes to maintain balanced fruit, acidity, and tanninsin world-famous wines like Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Most Champagne and Chianti bottles contain a blend of red and white wines, too. Cofermenting entails some degree of variability, so blouge winemaking is particularly suited to the unpredictability of modern climates. ⁇ You have to be adaptable if you ⁇ re depending on the weather for how you ⁇ re speaking your living, ⁇ Saoccourt Economics.

For 2024, the last year, the French label says that making red and white wines with a low-consolidated wine, including a low-consolidated wine, let's let you make a little too low-consolidated wine, and in 2024, the French label says.

⁇ La vie en blouge ⁇ occupies a sweet spot at the intersection of cool and approachable that can be hard to find in the wine world. ⁇ It injects a bit of playfulness and irreverence into a space that can feel really intimidating and rules-laden, ⁇ says Lugo. ⁇ To have this made-up word that denotes something delicious and fun and whimsical, people are just drawn to it. ⁇ After all, wine is comically complicated.