Cooking with Wine

Cook with wines you can drink:  you should never, ever, ever cook with a red wine which you wouldn't drink.  Generally you concentrate wine when cooking, and concentrated bad wine is concentrated badness.  White wine you can be a little more flexible with, since its flavors are less pronounced; a white wine which is a bit too sweet or too tart for enjoyment can still be cooked with with the appropriate foods.  Wines which are simply a bit oxidized due to being open (but not corked or vinegared) can be ok for cooking.

I found this out the hard way, making 2 gallons of red wine-mushroom pasta sauce with the cheapest red wine I could find in Berkeley.  All 2 gallons had to be thrown out; not even my freeloading stoner roommates would touch it.

Whatever you do, don't use the "cooking wine" which they sell at supermarkets; that's really a floor cleaner.  And more expensive than usable table wines, to boot.

Vermouth and Sherry are good substitutes if you don't drink wine and you hate throwing out half-full bottles.  Since they're fortified, they'll last a lot longer after opening.  Keep in mind, though, that they are sweeter and more alcoholic than regular wine.

Match wine to the food you cook like you'd match it to the food you'd eat.  In other words, if you'd eat the fish with a reisling or sauvingnon blanc, then that's probably the wine to cook it in as well.  Beef and boar call for strong-flavored red wines.  Don't be too fussy, though; most flavor distinctions will cook off.

Don't cook with oak.  A very oakey cabernet sauvingnon or chardonnay can be delightful to drink.  However, the oak (as with other tannic or bitter flavors in the wine) tends to get concentrated when cooking in an unpleasant way.  Lighter to medium wines are generally better for cooking.

The alcohol does not cook off completely, ever.  So if you have to cook for a recovering alcoholic or are about to take a drug test, you need to substitute something for the wine.  Depending on the recipe, a quality wine vinegar can work.  Some gourmet stores will sell you verjus, which is wine grape juice prior to fermentation, or grape must, which is a syrup which can be diluted.

So, enjoy cooking with wine!  And, of course, buy some wine at the Pacific Wine Club.  I enjoy visiting there when I'm in Medford; they carry wines like Manzanilla, Château Vieux Telegraphe, and high-quality cava which I have a lot of trouble finding even in San Francisco.  And you can pick up the newsletter and read about me!

I'm really looking forward to my Peerless Wine Club subscription.

(Image at top is red wine risotto with broiled lamb, which I had in Bozen in the Alps a couple years ago.  It was the inspiration for the prize-winning recipe.)