Commonwealth officials are cracking down on restaurants serving sangria prepared according to old-fashioned recipes, reports Jessica Gould.
La Tasca [a Spanish-themed restaurant in Clarendon] manager Daniela Schenone says the restaurant’s two Virginia outposts stopped serving brandy with their sangría about six months ago. Why? Because swilling traditional sangría is against the law in Virginia—and has been for decades.
Beth Straeten, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, writes in an e-mail that sangría has been illegal since the state’s alcohol agency was created in 1934. According to Virginia code, any restaurant with a mixed-beverage license is prohibited from “selling wine to which spirits or alcohol, or both, have been added.” Restaurants are also barred from selling beer to which wine or spirits have been added. So no go on the boilermakers, either.