Cooking with the wine you will be drinking.

A thread on the wine forum made me wonder if other people cooked with the same wine they would be consuming with the meal.

I do it often with sauces, using a portion of the wine to be consumed in making a dish.

Last night was Quivet sauvignon blanc used as the wine in making a gruyere/emmentaler cheese sauce for mac and cheese, and also using the wine to make a bleu cheese dressing for the accompanying salad.

I thought it made for a nice, subtle common thread between the food and wine.

Do y’all do this sort of thing? What good combos have you put together?

Almost no chance I’d do it. I don’t see much value in cooking with great wine. Some flavors are alcohol soluble, so the only thing you need to add is alcohol (see vodka sauce). Two buck chuck works well for me as do the Gallo four packs of 187ml bottles – that way I don’t have to open a full bottle.

It would be interesting to do a side by side comparison of a food made with $30 and $3 sauvignon blancs. I’m skeptical that there would be a noticeable difference.

I donut sometimes because the wine I am going to drink is handy…

Here’s my thought…

I drink a lot of my rose, bold and fruity, yet dry. If I have it open and I’m cooking, I may cook with it. I don’t cook with red wine often unless I’m doing a red wine reduction, then I’m probably not going to cook with the red wine that I’m drinking. I’d specifically choose the red or more likely I will be blending several bottles that are leftovers from several recent tastings.

On whites though, the oxidized whites that are not suitable to drink anymore, IMHO are perfect for cooking. They lend a bit of dry sherry oxidized flavor, without spending the money on a nice dry aged Sherry.

Of course.
Coq au Vin-
Three bottles of Chambertin. One in the dish, two on the table.

Doesn’t everyone?

:wink:

I do love cooking from the “cooking bottle,” which is a mix of unfinished wines that stays on my cooking counter.

Paul Bocuse, in an interview in the 80’s, was asked about California wines and he replied that he loved Caymus Special Selection (which was a different animal then than it is now) to use for making reduction sauces! It was funny at the time.

I’m ok with using good wine in cream sauces or reductions. When using wine for cooking, I will first use something I have left over, then try to use something like an inexpensive sherry for doing something like carmelizing onions or making a batch of mushrooms.

If I’m braising or making a stew and a higher volume of wine is needed, I see no issue in using ‘cheap’ wine. Dumping an entire bottle of $8 quality Portuguese table red in a stew or braise makes more sense to me than ‘wasting’ an expensive bottle.

Manlin used a corked Montrachet IIRC to make risotto.

It depends. If the amount of wine is 1/2 cup or less and it’s only me or my wife and me eating dinner, then I go ahead and use the same wine. Otherwise, I’ll use a pedestrian wine for cooking and serve more of the better stuff to my guests.

+1

This test found pretty much what you guessed:

Agree that it depends. Depends on what I am drinking and how much wine I need to cook. For most stews, braises, etc, I typically buy an inexpensive unoaked wine. For things like Risotto or where I just need a little bit, I will generally dump in a bit of what I am drinking.

Cooks magazine did a test a few years back and basically found no difference between using good wine or black box in cooking.

Vermouth

One thing I don’t want is an oaky wine for cooking.

“Secret” ingredient for my mushroom soup.

I think this is one of those mind games we play with ourselves. If I were to cook with a wine I was serving with dinner, I’d conclude that I either wasted some great wine or I should be drinking better wine.

this

When Rousseau Chambertin and Beze cost under a hundred bucks a bottle and I went all out on a dinner including making homemade stock for a reduction, on more than one occasion I added a quarter cup or so to that. But three bottles??? :slight_smile:

IIRC, originally from Hugh Johnson.

If you cook with what you drink, there is less to drink!

We keep a 4-pack of Sutter Home (or whatever other cheap wine) white and red in the cabinet for cooking.