Plonk

re: Wino sharing

An ITB friend did this once (arranging a place / time to meet FWIW). He said bring a supermarket trolley and some mates.

He bumped into the guy a couple of weeks later who thanked him and said although some of it was “a bit rough” [blink.gif] he’d be up for another load any time.

Cooks illustrated did a test where they tried a dish (beef Bourgogne I think) with good wine vs plonk. There was no difference in the two dishes. Their recommendation was to use black box. I trust their results in general.

Count your blessings that you have friends who give you presents!

DRC, and only DRC, stew for me please.

“If you cook with a high-end wine, you are a fool.” At a certain temperature, good wine no longer offers anything special to a dish; in fact, when cooking, you’re often seeking out more tannin and residual sugar than you might like in a wine you’d drink."

Chef Andrew Carmellini

Any difference in cooking with an already “cooked” wine, and a non heat damaged ?
-After all, its gonna be cooked a lot, to perform correct.
An acidic monster (or old sour bottles) can also add the often important acidic component to the dish/sauce.
Even at vinegar stage it can add great flavor to the respective food.
A top chef must be the expert here.

-Søren.

My wife sells wine to some of the highest end restaurants in L.A… I’ve ha discussions with chefs over the subject, and no one cooks with wine over $8 a bottle, and $4-5 is typical. That is based on both expense, and just as importantly the fact that going above that adds nothing to a dish. This has been supported by multiple publicized tests.

We tend to cook with a wide variation of wines largely because my wife has so many samples. The $5 bottles end up the same as the $20 bottles. We cook with bottles left in the fridge for weeks. They’re oxidized and not drinkable, but do great when cooked. Chefs look at acidity and sugar levels in wine as those attributes stand out the most. Things like oxidization, oak, tannin, or even alcohol level don’t show in the final cooked product. There’s no way that a $20+ wine is going to make a dish taste any better than an $8 wine. Type of wine is not that important either, but it’s more important (at extremes) than quality.

I don’t know- I recall Aubert talking about coq au vin made with either 63/65 Romanee conti that was celestial ( could’ve been La Tache ). Of course, one man’s plonk is anothers man’s high end wine. lol

Fortunately, I don’t cook in high end restaurants in L.A. I only cook for friends and family, so I’m afforded the luxury and quirks that my tastes lead me to.

Call me irrational or foolish, but I enjoy cooking a wine-based dish (e.g. Coq au vin) with a cup of the wine that will accompany it at the table. The flavors are naturally complementary.

I make a beef daube or coq au vin maybe three times a year, so I don’t think it’s nuts to take the extra care to open a bottle of good bourgogne and have a glass while prepping, use a cup or two in the wine, and enjoy the rest with dinner.

As others have cited Batali, I will counter with this vid where he says cook with what you are having with dinner:

http://www.foodandwine.com/video/how-choose-cooking-wine-mario-batali

If I go to all the trouble of making a proper meal why bother with a syrupy glass of Yellow Tail or screechy Barefoot? Posters have said sugars and acids matter most to cooks, so why add wines that fail in those categories?

I think we are splitting hairs here, based on one’s definition of plonk. If you have the option, I just think it’s wise to skip truly awful wine when cooking. I am not suggesting using an entire bottle of premier cru Burgundy in any dish!

And finally, I’ll let Julia Child have the final word on this subject:

“I enjoy cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in my food!”

Happy New Year to you all! :slight_smile:

I have a couple of friends who swear by d’Yquem for creating one of their special desserts at home. Of course, that means the 93, or the 94 in a pinch. Still.

Most cooking wine in American restaurants, including most excellent ones, is coming from 18L Bag-in-box ‘Burgundy’ and ‘Chablis’ where the grapes may have been grown anywhere but France.

I made a lamb “bourgogne” on Saturday, with an 01 California Cab.

And the kids (and dog) loved it.

Took me 2 hours.

Every last bit was gone.

So one doesn’t even have to use the proper varietal!

I think the last time I tried to make something nice that was wine based, I used a throwaway 2011 Cab.

Very disappointing.

Of course the fault could not have been mine. It must have been the vintage!!!

Matthew,
I didn’t mean to say that you are doing anything the wrong way. Only that chefs and studies support the idea that the original poster can make fine food cooking with his “plonk”. You are obviously the only judge as to what to do with your wine, especially if adding the dynamic of wanting to drink what you cook with.

I hope you have a distribution license! If
Not someone here might tattle
On you!

Or a nice host. [snort.gif]

Give them to the homeless…

Sounds like you also hate the idea of being connected to these bottles. [snort.gif]

Actually, supermarket/jug wine will mess up your vinegar – too much sulfites or whatever they include to make sure it will survive sitting open on the kitchen counter for a week or two (or more). The stuff just won’t turn – it’s aceto-bacteria-proof.

That’s called “dish bias”. Serve it to him double blind and see what happens :stuck_out_tongue: hahahaha

If you do any smoking of meats, any kind of plonk will work to flavor and provide juice for the smoked meat. There is no way the type of wine used makes any difference. Some fruitiness of the wine will make it into the bird or other type of meat, that is what you want. Did a turkey for Xmas with Barefoot and other similar wines and it came out great.

Sangria!