Cooking with wine

I don’t go out of my way to purchase plonk for cooking, but I also don’t mind cooking with wines that I didn’t care for in a glass. Cooking destroys a lot of the flavor compounds in wine, and of course if you are just using a few glugs in a sauce the flavor is significantly diluted anyway. Generally speaking, I prefer high acidity wines for cooking, since I usually use them to brighten the flavor of things - but since I prefer higher-acidity wines for drinking as well, that’s usually what we have in the house. As others have noted, a too-tannic red or too-oaky Chardonnay can contribute some unwanted flavors to a dish, but I find that any run-of-the mill Sauvignon blanc for white or Malbec/young Chianti for red usually works perfectly in my cooking.

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I was going to note to avoid any oak forward Chardonnay, learned that the hard way.

And don’t overlook the assortment of tiny bottles of hard alcohol for cooking in any liquor store, i’ve certainly picked up some for cooking before - I don’t generally have any hard liquor at home

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I have a bunch of them :smiley: usually alcohol for desserts, that I don’t want buy a full bottle.

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I keep a bunch for french toast batter, brownies my wife bakes and for parties.

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