Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Medio y Medio
Montevideo's celebratory apéritif: equal parts dry sparkling wine and dry white wine, poured cold and toasted at the table.
Uruguayan · easy · serves 2
prep 5 min · cook 0 min
~79 cal · 0g protein · 5g carbs · 0g fat · 1g fiber · 1g sugars · 0g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Medio y medio, "half and half", is Uruguay's festive aperitif, forever associated with the old Roldós stall in Montevideo's Mercado del Puerto, where it has been poured for well over a century. The name is the recipe: it is a blend of equal parts sparkling wine and a still dry white wine, mixed to land somewhere between a crisp white and a proper sparkler.
Served well chilled, it is lightly effervescent, dry, and easy-drinking, the glass you raise before a meal of grilled meat at the port market, or at a celebration. Commercial bottled versions of the blend are sold across Uruguay, but the classic is mixed fresh, half and half, straight into the glass.
Simple, sociable, and unmistakably Montevidean, medio y medio is the toast that opens a Uruguayan feast. It is alcoholic, so it is not for everyone at the table, but a chilled non-alcoholic blend of sparkling and still grape juice gives the same celebratory fizz.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 2
3 oz dry sparkling white wine, well chilled
3 oz dry still white wine, well chilled
1 strip of lemon peel, to garnish
Instructions
1
Chill both wines and the glasses well before serving, as this drink is all about being crisp and cold.
2
Pour equal parts sparkling wine and still white wine into each glass.
3
Stir once, very gently, so as not to knock the bubbles out of the sparkling wine.
4
Twist a strip of lemon peel over the glass and drop it in, then serve at once.
Montevideo Mercado del Puerto tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Montevideo. Montevideo is a beef city with an Italian accent, and the chivito, a steak sandwich loaded with ham, cheese, egg, and olives, is its everyday order; it was invented up the coast at Punta del Este in the mid-1940s and reached Montevideo by 1949. Wood-fired parrilla grilling, mate passed hand to hand, and dulce de leche in every dessert define the Uruguayan table.
🗺️
Uruguay. Uruguay eats more beef per head than almost anywhere, roughly fifty kilos a person a year, and exports about three quarters of what it produces. The grill it goes on is a parrilla with an adjustable brasero at the side, where wood burns down to embers that are raked under the grate as needed, so the cook controls heat by moving coals rather than the meat.
🌍
South America. The Andes are the potato's homeland and still hold something like four thousand native varieties, selected over thousands of years for altitude, colour and texture. The high plateau also worked out how to keep them: frozen overnight in the cold, trodden to press the water out, then dried in the sun into chuno, which stores for years.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Uruguay
Chivito al PlatoUruguay’s glorious everything-plate: thin steak under ham, cheese, olives, and a fried egg with ensalada rusa.
Torta FritaGolden discs of fried dough with a slit in the middle, crisp-edged and pillowy, the treat Uruguayans make whenever it rains, dusted with sugar and dunked in mate.
Tarta PascualinaA flaky double-crust pie of chard and ricotta with whole eggs baked inside, an everyday River Plate lunch.
Browse all Uruguay recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Uruguay meal
Chivito al PlatoDinner
ChajáDessert
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Frequently asked questions
What is Medio y Medio?
Montevideo's celebratory apéritif: equal parts dry sparkling wine and dry white wine, poured cold and toasted at the table.
Where does Medio y Medio come from?
Medio y Medio is a Uruguayan dish from Montevideo, Uruguay.
Can Medio y Medio be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Medio y Medio recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Medio y Medio safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Medio y Medio take to make?
About 5 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 2.
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