Mead might fit the bill.
I feel your pain - I’ve had many a half-bottle or 3/4 bottle go bad, because I like an occasional glass of red wine, but there’s no way I will finish a whole bottle before it goes bad (unless I have company). But there’s another solution for your leftover wine - try cooking something that calls for wine, like a nice beef stew or coq au vin. Or I keep seeing recipes for pears poached in red wine - I’ve never tried making them, but they look intriguing.
I was going to say this, but you beat me to the punch. You’re referring to Andrea Immer. I would really recommend her book Great Wine Made Simple if you’re looking to get into wine.
To expand the bodied conversation a bit, as far as whites goes, she says Rieslings are light bodied, Sauvignon Blancs are medium bodied, and Chardonnay’s are full bodied. For reds, she says Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, respectively. I would expand it a bit to say Gewurtztraminer is medium-full for a white, Syrah/Shiraz is medium for a red, and Zinfandel is medium-full for a red.
This is generally true. But–I have no idea what kind of wine might be produced in Indiana. Nearly all Missouri wines I’ve tried have been extremely sweet, both red and white. The exceptions that I remember would be Stone Hill’s Seyval (very fruity but not sweet) and Stone Hill’s Norton (and any other Missouri winery’s Norton that I’ve tried). So sample local wines (if they exist) with caution.
I haven’t met an Australian wine I didn’t like, though maybe I haven’t tried hard enough. Have you tried Yellow Tail (cab/shiraz/anything else)?
Also, I second Trader Joe’s under $10 offerings–you can find a very pleasant bottle of wine for four or five dollars. I’ve struck out once or twice, but as previous posters have mentioned, that’s what coq au vin and other recipes are for.
And have you thought about making your own beer? Yeah, it can be a hassle, but you can control the ingredients completely, and there’s something nice about pouring a glass of your very own brew.
Something else you might want to try is mead. Keeps well in the bottle, and comes in varieties from dry to sweet. Yummy stuff.
I don’t know if homebrewing beer is the answer. The base of every kit includes barley malt. In fact, beer really isn’t beer unless it has barley malt in it. I suppose you could just limit yourself to wheat malt, but I haven’t seen any wheat beer recipes that don’t have at least a little bit of barley malt.
Sauvignon Blanc! That’s the medium white I couldn’t remember. And thanks for supplying the Andrea Immer’s name, too, easy e. I was too lazy to do a search and linky, but here’s one:
I didn’t finish it, but I really liked what I saw when I got it from the library. It’s a pretty fantastic book.
D’oh! Mea culpa. I think the beer police will now be revoking my geek license, as I scanned the wiki and didn’t notice (and didn’t previously know) that wheat beers usually contain barley as well. After googling for a bit, it seems that 100% wheat beers are very uncommon and very difficult to brew. Never mind.