Note this is for cooking wines red and white. I got a new cookbook and quite a few of the recipes include wine. I need something fairly inexpensive but still tastes ok.

Do not use cooking wine. They make that out of the "undrinkable" leftovers...

This could help you... http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/all-about-cooking-with-wine/17453.html

You don't want to use any wine that markets itself as a "cooking wine." You want an inexpensive regular brand that could also serve as a table wine.

Decent, inexpensive brands include Frontera, Little Penguin, Yellowtail, and Black Opal. Rosemount is pricier and excellent.

Domestically speaking, I like Redwood Creek (Frei Bros.) and Barefoot wines. Meridian is a bit pricier and also good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2011 01:37PM by summer.

If you can't drink it, don't cook with it. "Cooking Wine" found in grocery stores has salt added to it so you wouldn't even want to drink it. So why would you cook with it?

For whites, look for a dry, not a sweet wine. Stay away from Moscato, Rieslings, Rose and the like which are paired with deserts, mostly. A Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio works, as well as the French Mouton Cadet (white bordeaux), the Spanish Marques de Caceres. Argentina has a great white wine named Lo Tengo.

For reds, look for a reasonably priced Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Zinfandel.

You can find all of the above around $10 in Utah.

If you like the wine enough to drink, it will do great for cooking.

unfortunately, I don't drink so I don't get to taste in advance, I only get to taste the results.

So, I am stuck waiting till the dish is done then seeing if I like the flavor the wine added to the dish. Interestingly enough, I like "Vendange California Merlot" for a red wine. This is nice for me because I can get it in the small bottles that are about one cup each. There is also a white that comes in the small bottles but I forget the name.

Since I do not drink, I like the small one cup bottles because I don't have a full size bottle of wine left over to go bad.

I agree one should never use cooking wine, the wine itself is nasty and they add salt.

Also, people will claim that all the alcohol will evaporate out, this is not the case. Even after an hour of simmering, something like 40% of the alcohol remains. This is not an issue for most, but it can be an issue for some. Most recipes call for sweating or sautéing the some vegies before adding the liquid ingredients. If you deglaze the pan with the wine before adding the liquid ingredients, then cook until almost all the liquid is gone, this will insure that virtually all the alcohol is evaporated leaving only the flavor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2011 04:23PM by MJ.

Thanks, these are slow cooker recipes so wouldn't more alcohol evaporate. What is everybody's take on cooking with wine when there are children going to be eating the food too?

25% of the alcohol boils off after an hour of simmering...

http://www.ochef.com/165.htm

Only 5% is left after 2 1/2 hours. So crock pot stuff should be fine.

Sorry about getting the numbers wrong, I hadn't actually looked at the numbers in a long time. My mistake.

Good info. I didn't know they made small bottle wines. I'll go check out what they have at the local liquor stores. Better hurry because i'm in utah and they just shut down some liqour stores :(

Personally, I think cooking with wine is fine, even when tere are children who are going to be eating it. A lot of the alcohol (not all) will evaporate after slow cooking, but if you are concerned about it, you can always boil the wine before adding to the dish.

I agree with MJ about buying the small bottles, unless you live in an area with Trader Joes, in which case you can get charles shaw wine (a.k.a two buck chuck, even though the price has gone up to $3-4), which is good for cooking and typically good for drinking. If you don't have a Trader Joes around, go with MJ's suggestion for small bottles, usually the brand Sutter Home has a 4 pack of small bottles (though this will probably be more expensive than buying a single, regular-sized bottle).

If you don't go with the small bottles, a lot of good wines can be found in the $6-8 price range. Of course it's going to be hit-or-miss if you are unfamiliar with the brand, but any of them are going to be better than cooking wine (YUCK). On one hand, I buy into the philosophy that you shouldn't cook with a wine that you wouldn't drink, but on the other, you don't need to cook with as high a caliber wine as you'd want to drink.

Just make sure you are not cooking with wines on the sweeter spectrum. Stick with dry wines unless you are making a dessert.

after the cooking process, the amount of wine used in most recipes is 1/2 cup or less. That much wine in a full crock pot would mean very little when you portion out the dish. There would be much less alcohol per serving than a dose of Nyquill.

Wine is added as a cooking ingredient for flavor, not the alcohol. I get that from the glass of wine I have while cooking and/or the glass I have with the dinner. I have no problem cooking with wine even when children are eating. Again, the amount of alcohol left, if you heat your dish until it steams, is very small.