I have a lot of recipes in my cookbook that say “dry red wine,” “dry white wine,” and so on.
It would help idiots like me if the recipe authors would suggest a type of wine that meets these parameters, but most don’t.
So, chefs, what dry red wines and dry white wines should one use when cooking? I presume that my favorite sipping wine (Stone Hill [Missouri] Concord Grape, or hoosier red as I like to call it) isn’t going to cut it.
One factor to remember when cooking with wine is the wine you use will influence the taste of the food. A good rule of thumb is never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.
Exactly. Remember, you want the flavor of the wine to come out and influence the other ingredients. Think about what the base flavours are and if you like them, you’ll probably like the final result.
NO COOKING WINE!!! It has too much salt and the flavor is terrible.
Sweet wines tend to be the exception, now that Americans are drinking more wine.
Here’s a partial list of some common dry reds and whites:
White: Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, semillon.
Red: cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, merlot, zinfandel (not white zinfandel, which is sweet).
Some sweet wines used in cooking include cream sherry, port and madeira. They have a higher alcohol content and give a more pronounced flavor to the food. (There are also dry sherries which are not at all sweet.)
I understand that the wine has to be of good quality, and certainly not “cooking wine,” but since I drink very little wine outside the paramaters of what I like (and I have a TERRIBLE palate), I needed some idea of what the dry reds and dry whites were. That helps a lot.
If you still want to use a Missouri wine just go 30 or so miles to the west of Stone Hill to Les Bourgeois winery and pick up either a Claret or a Jeunette Rouge, both of which are decent dry reds. Stay far far away from Riverboat Red.
Ah, Retsin, I told you I was a Philistine. I like Riverboat Red (to drink, I wouldn’t cook with it). I also like St. James wines, although those strange plastic corks are the absolute devil to get out of the bottles. There’s a couple of hoity-toity Stone Hill wines I like, but I’m ashamed to admit I’m a concord grape girl at heart; about the only Missouri product I don’t much care for is Hermanhoff cherry wine. One of these springs I’m going to try my hand at dandelion wine–the quintessential sweet hoosier wine.
In addition to the nice list given by cher3, you can even get a ‘table red’ or a ‘table white’ that says it is dry, or go with some of the interesting mixed varieties (more than one kind of grape), which will usually tell you on the label if they are dry or not.
I definitely agree that you need to have a clue if you like that wine before you contaminate a decent meal with it. People (clearly not those here) look at me like I’m a nut for putting highly drinkable wine in my food - but if I’m using it for flavor, I’d prefer to actually LIKE the flavor I’m adding, thanks! (or at least not find it annoying, or missing something that I then have to fill in some other way.) If you don’t have much of a discerning palate for wines (and/or food-that-contains-wine), start with the lower-level drinkables, and move up as your tastes move up.
here’s my hot tip for finding what you are looking for: Go to a large wine/spirits store, and ask for the wine expert. Tell them you have, say, $50 to spend (or whatever) and you’d like to start exploring whats available. Provide your parameters (on a budget, local wines, etc.). Tell them you want at least one bottle that would make a good dry cooking wine in both red and white, but would also like to be able to drink the stuff. (You could even just go ask them that last question, and skip the rest of the exploration.) They will accomodate. REALLY. They LOVE getting people started exploring wine.
And then take notes when you open them, and after you taste the results of the meal (or while cooking - noting what wine you used in the margin of the cookbook is very useful!). When you run out of that wine, go back and either find the same wine (don’t forget the year, or at least check if there is a BAD year to avoid), or ask again, and see if you can get some further exploration. Come prepared with your list of what you have liked in the previous batch, and they can find you similar stuff again.
You may be able to buy something called “Dry White Wine”, believe it or not. I bought an Italian wine like that for a recipe I was making just the other day. Blended wines (wines that are part Sauvignon Blanc and part Chardonnay, for example) may be described this way. Or not.
Just so you know, the dryness of a wine is a measure of the residual sugars in the wine, so the less sweet the wine the drier it is. Personally, I wouldn’t use a red zin in a recipe that called for a dry red, but that’s me. Shiraz is a good dry red, as is another S that’s escaping me at the moment but Bonnie Doon bottles. Aussie whites sold in the US tend to be dry, IME.
Some sweet wines are gewurtztraminner, most rieslings (unless it’s a dry riesling), malbec, and beujolais nouveau.
hedra’s suggestion about going to a wine store is a good one. You may even find a night when they’re doing tastings. I learned much of what I know about wine from going to tastings and asking questions.
If you don’t want to dive right into dry wines, you might like to try some German-style whites like a Gewürztraminer or a Reisling. They are on the sweeter side, but are still light enough to cook with. They go especially well with chicken and fish dishes, or pasta with a cream sauce.
Living only 45 minutes away from Les Bourgeois, I have drank wine from there several times. I rather liked Riverboat Red and Claret but haven’t tried Jeunette Rouge.
I found that cooking with Riverboat Red, however, left something to be disired.
