I’m going to make Alton Brown’s tomato sauce recipe tonight. It calls for white wine and I have no knowledge of wine. What kind would I want for making sauce? Should it be dry? Someone suggested chardonnay. Is that headed in the right direction? Thanks.
Yes, it should be dry. Chardonnay would work, as would a Sauvignon Blank, Pinot Grigio, or just about any other dry white wine.
Head to your liquor store, ask for a bottle of inexpensive dry white wine. They oughta be able to steer you towards something in the $4-$6 dollar range that will do just fine.
Yes, it should be dry. Chardonnay would probably be fine, although I tend to use sauvignon blanc. Chardonnay has a more pronounced varietal flavor (especially American chardonnay), but that probably wouldn’t matter here.
Remember, it doesn’t need to be an expensive wine. California wines can be found quite cheaply – even Alton himself says he rarely spends over $5 for wine used in cooking. Just don’t use the so-called ‘cooking wine’!
Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink. But there is no need to go nuts, here either. Get a midrange Sauv. Blanc and you are good to go.
I keep two bottle of wine for cooking (fitted with pour spouts) on my counter:
A Cabernet Sauvignon and a Sauvignon Blanc
The brand is Vendage…and it runs between $4 and $6 a bottle.
I am actually a big fan of rieslings for cooking. Less alcohol but more acid which adds more winey flavour to foods IMHO.
How does this work? An open bottle of wine is getting close to unuseable for any purpose after 3 days or so.
Yeah, I’m not sure I’d want to cook with wine that’s more than a few days old.
However…and don’t chuckle or gasp at this suggestion…it is possible to freeze wine in ice-cube trays for later use in cooking. Honestly, it’s the best possible way I know of to save leftover wine for cooking use. Trust me on this. It works.
Not to argue with you on this point, but I only cook with wine I wouldn’t drink. It’s just a matter of taste, but I like a really strong wine flavor when I cook with it, and I find that good drinking wines are much to subtle to cook with.
I get the cheapest, aromatic white I can find when I need to some to cook with. I have a Beringer Sauvignon Blanc in the fridge for cooking. And believe it or not, a “red” (that’s the name) on the counter for recipes with a red wine.
I fI put wine in something, it is usually in a reduction, so it gets plenty aromatic. The point is not to use plonk if you expect greatness. All a matter of taste, of course. I much prefer drinking wines to have some backbone and character. Subtlety is not what I treasure in wine. Give a good Zinfandel or Sangiovese and I’m happy. These wines are also marvelous to cook with. 
Wow, I must be a knuckle-dragging oaf, since the word that popped into mind when I read the thread title was “Sauterne,” but then you guys all posted in with dries.
In my defense, especially with what is essentiall a fruit-based (tomato) sauce, I’d want to keep it sweet (but not too much so - so I’d go no further than straw sauterne), and then drink something dry with it to balance that.
Of course, I almost never drink white wines to begin with, so what is in the house gets used in cooking pretty much by default. I agree with Baron Rothschild: “I’ll drink white wine when there is no more red wine on the planet.”