Help with Cranberry Sauce Recipe

OK, have a recipe for "Sangria" Cranberry sauce that I'm looking to make for Thanksgiving. Recipe just calls for 1 cup red wine, no mention of sweet, dry, anything. Suspect the Sangria part of title just refers to the fruit in it(though i will paste recipe at end for what help there is). Looking for any suggestions on what type of wine might work well. Actually thinking of using one of my cranberry based home made wines, or some beaujolais nouveaux just in honor of time of year. But happy to get any input on this. Not making it until Wednesday night, so still have some time for shopping if need be (already have the cranberry wines and a bottle of beaujolais nouveaux on the rack).

sangria cranberry sauce
Prep 15 minutes plus chilling Cook about 30 minutes Makes about 4 3/4 cups

1 lemon
1 lime
1 orange
1 bag (12 ounces) cranberries (3 cups), picked over
1 container (16 ounces) frozen strawberries in sugar, thawed
1 cup red wine
1 cup sugar
1. From lemon, grate 1 teaspoon peel and squeeze 3 tablespoons juice -From lime, grate 1 teaspoon peel and squeeze 2 tablespoons juice. From orange, grate 1/2 teaspoon peel and squeeze 1/4 cup juice.
2. In 3-quart saucepan, combine lemon, lime, and orange peels, cran berries, strawberries with their syrup, wine, and sugar; heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to medium low and cook, uncovered, 15 minutes longer or until sauce thickens, stir ring occasionally. Stir in lemon, lime, ] and orange juices.
3. Spoon cranberry sauce into serving bowl; cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 4 hours.

[Robin Garr]

Joel, generally speaking, when a recipe simply calls for "red wine" or "white wine," you can get away with just about any dry (unsweet) bottle, provided it's not such awful stuff that you wouldn't want to drink it. For this recipe, why not go ethnic with an inexpensive Spanish red? Your local wine shop should have a good selection for well under $10, or we can give you more exact recommendations if you need them.

To answer your specific questions, a Nouveau Beaujolais ought to get the job done. Your cranberry wine might work, too, if it's not a very sweet wine.

Thanks Robin. I think i'll go with the Nouveau. Except of course until I change my mind at last minute when I go through rack and find somethin gelse that just strikes me as right. Particularly since part of cooking on wednesday is going to be finishing the bottle, since the recipe only calls for 1 cup.

The cranberry based wines I have all have little to know residual sugar, but leaning away from them now. Just adding more of the same flavor, while i suspect that this recipe would benefit, like most, by adding some complexity, something differnet, not just more of the same.

A Spanish red is definitely an interesting suggestion, and was something else I had thought of.

basically, I'm still not sure. But you gave some great advice, just need to learn to make up my mind. Thanks.

[Jenise]

Actually thinking of using one of my cranberry based home made wines

That's what I'd do! With all that fruit, the wine is just going to give your sauce a wine-y backgone. If it's a sweet cranberry wine, back off on the sugar. If it's dry, use the amount they recommend and add more if you think it needs more. If you use another red wine, presume they mean dry. I like Robin's recco on the Nouveau except for color--that's a deep, saturated purple color, where cranberries produce the most brilliant ruby shade. I personally would be onto holding that red color as much as possible and would go with a wine that would support that goal and provide red berry flavors, like a grenache.