Spritzer In some places it is said that wine spritzers make poets sing and nations come together. The word comes from the German "spritzen" "spatter, squirt, spray, sprinkle", i.e. adding water and thus diluting the wine so that it can be consumed in larger, thirst-quenching amounts. Alcoholic spritzers are increasingly available ready-mixed in cans; their relatively low alcohol and calorific content means they are often marketed at women. In Hesse, "gespritzt" usually refers to a mixture of soda water or lemonade and "Apfelwein" (in Central Hessian dialect, "Ebblwoi"), an alcoholic drink from fermented apple juice somewhat similar to dry hard cider.
South West France (wine region) Gironde estuary) and their tributaries, as well as the wine-producing areas of Gascony including Béarn, and the Northern Basque Country. However, only areas closer to the Atlantic than to the Mediterranean are included in the region, with the city of Toulouse being situated roughly halfway between the South West wine region and the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region on the Mediterranean. The brandy-producing region Armagnac is situated within Gascony and the wine region of South West France, and some of its grapes are used to make Vin de Pays under the designation "Vin de Pays de Côtes de Gascogne" or mixed with