I drink wine, and can’t imagine having “leftover” wine. That being said, if I wouldn’t drink it, I sure wouldn’t put it in anything I am cooking.
I’d go with vermouth, preferably the dry white, as it’ll be the most versatile kind. I find it’s generally cheaper than wine, and it keeps quite well.
I’ve heard about storing vermouth in the fridge and tossing after a couple of months before, but it’s always been from folks who are so picky about their booze that they can tell which brand of vermouth went into their martini with a single sip… and let’s be honest, most of us just don’t have that finely tuned of a palate. I store my vermouth in the liquor cabinet, and each bottle usually lasts around 6-8 months. I’ve yet to throw out a bottle because it tastes off.
I suppose there might be a slight change in taste that would be noticeable if drinking it straight, but I can’t tell the difference once the vermouth has been mixed into a Manhattan or used in a cooked dish (and besides, if my spaghetti sauce tastes noticeably like vermouth - even if it’s good vermouth - I’ve done something wrong).
If you’re going to need, say, 1/4 of the bottle for a recipe, look around for another recipe you can serve at the same meal that uses the rest of the wine. For example, say you need 3/4 cup of red wine for a beef stew recipe. You could use the rest to make Pears Poached in Red Wine, Cardamom, and Orange. Or you could make half the recipe and still have a glass of wine left to serve your dinner companion.
Freeze leftover wine.
You can either pour it into ice cube trays, or into one of those lidded plastic containers, or into a Ziploc bag. When you need more, just scrape out what you need and nuke it until it’s liquid again. I do that all the time and it works beautifully.
Exactly. Not so awesome for drinking, but perfect for cooking.
I’ve read or heard somewhere- I can’t remember my cite, but it was likely either NPR or the New York Times- that some wines that aren’t so great for drinking are good for cooking, because the heat and the accompanying reduction changes the flavor and the texture.
I’m the sort of person who has an ancient bottle of white wine in the fridge that gets splashed into dishes that need acid and don’t call for citrus, tomato, or vinegar, so you might not want to trust me entirely. But don’t feel obligated to buy a wine with a wonderful review when one with a fair-to-good review will work just as well.
I second the option of buying those little four-packs of individual-serving-sized wine bottles. I usually keep two four-packs in the cupboard: one pinot grigio (which isn’t woody or sweet like chardonnay), and one merlot. Half of one of these bottles usually goes into a recipe, and the second half goes into the fridge and is usually used up within a week.
Wine stores also sell “splits”, which are half-bottles of wine. These would be good if you needed more for your recipe.
I’ve been known to keep bottles of wine meant for cooking over the course of months. I just stick the cork back into the bottle when I’m done with it. Never had any trouble with it.
I would be loathe to substitute something non-alcoholic for wine, though. Different foods have different flavors that dissolve in different media. Sometimes water does the trick, sometimes it’s oil, but sometimes alcohol is needed to coax all the goodness out of a recipe. From the “Good Eats” episode on tomatoes:
Alton’s also said similar things about dried fruit, capsaicin, coconut and black pepper, just from what google can bring back. But, as the last line of the quote says, if you don’t want to fool with it, that’s not a big deal either.
If you live in Minneapolis, give it to me.
That depends on what the recipe needs from it. For some recipes, you just need the acidity or the flavor ingredients, in which case vinegar might work, but for others, you might need the volatility or flammability, for which there’s no substitute for alcohol.
Just an aside from a non-wine drinker:
If you’re cooking for guests who normally don’t drink wine, you might want to ask about allergies ahead of time.
Don’t get me wrong - I do like me a drink or six during an evening, but I am allergic to Sulfa drugs. When I was a kid and all we could get was wine, I of course would drink my way directly to Blitzville, but the next day the hangover was horrible. Even later in life, during a formal meal or what not, even just one glass of wine would give me a horrible headache and make me call it an evening pretty quickly.
Later, life taught me (due to an unfortunate reaction to a prescription) that I am allergic to Sulfa drugs. It seems that almost all wines have sulfides present as a by-product of fermentation. These reactions are not life threatening, but they will kill a good time right quick.
Before I knew Chicken Marsala was cooked with Marsala wine :smack:, I once ordered it for dinner. I thought it was yummy. Not five minutes after I finished my meal I was in headache hell.
I know that there are indeed a *few *brands of wine that are specifically sulfide-free, but they’re not available where I live.
Pass the Jack Daniel’s, please 
To a lesser degree, if you are entertaining Asians (no insult intended), you might want to make sure they don’t suffer from Alcohol flush reaction, as some people lack the enzymes to properly digest alcohol, and this seems to be more prevalent within the Asian community. It won’t kill their evening, but it might make them uncomfortable. One of my friends is Korean, and she prefers to know whether or not any food or drink has alcohol in it, because she is particularly sensitive.
…Just my two cents.
Maybe xiao xing rice wine. Rice sherry. Versatile, quite discernable but can never quite touch it. Dry, hearty, grainy. Not as fruity as a juicy berry. Burns off.
Maybe a nice fortified Kasseler Pflaumchen wine. The young plums made into wine. A touch of brandy sets it off with a couple teaspoons of sugar, and a twist of orange rind to make a fine flaming prune/plum Crepe.