>
> It wasn’t that the finished dishes were identical — in fact, they did have surprisingly distinct flavors — but the wonderful wines and the awful ones produced equally tasty food, especially if the wine was cooked for more than a few minutes.
>
> [–Julia Moskin; New York restaurant critic and cookbook author]
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/8 "2007-09-04T12:42:59Z")
So I guess the lesson is: use whatever gives you the results you like.
I use a gewurtztraminer for white wine cooking. Never really use red since I don’t cook red meat.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/9 "2007-09-04T13:08:03Z")
With a few exceptions, using expensive wine in a recipe is just a pretentious way to waste money. Sure, if it’s poached pears or champagne jelly, you might choose to use something a bit special, but for long cooking times - dishes like braised pork, so much alteration goes on in the cooking process that the initial drinking qualities of the wine are just irrelevant.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/10 "2007-09-04T14:10:06Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Sorry, but you’re wrong.
[It Boils Down to This: Cheap Wine Works Fine](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/dining/21cook.html?ex=1332129600&en=ebea65f0dc5ce112&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss)
[/QUOTE]
Doesn’t make any difference. You’ll never find a cheap-ass wine in my house, so the dish is always going to have a decent wine in it. When Moskin has some people back up her work, then I might reconsider. Until then, Julia Child is my guiding light.
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### Author:  [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/11 "2007-09-04T14:21:21Z")
[QUOTE=silenus]
Bulldookie. Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink on its own.
[/QUOTE]
Huh. My Friends The Cooks all say that cheap wine works just fine for cooking. “Go get me a bottle of some nice Chilean red, and a bottle of El Tiempo for the stew.” One says to play it safe, though, and buy one of those three-liter boxes of wine; you can squeeze out however much you need for the recipe and then drink the rest while cooking. (Cooks are lushes, though, so…) 😉
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### Author:  [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/12 "2007-09-04T14:28:33Z")
I cook with that crap-ass for drinking cooking wine. It’s basically wine with a ton of salt or vinegar, or something sour. My dishes come out fine.
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### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/13 "2007-09-04T14:31:26Z")
My interpretation of the rule has always been to not cook with a wine you _couldn’t_ drink. That is, don’t use “cooking wine”, and don’t use the cheapest plonk you can find, but a respectable sub-$10 bottle is fine.
In fact, the _Cook’s Illustrated_ people had good things to say about boxed wine for cooking a while back. The spigot makes for easy measuring, the box n’ bladder system gives it a long shelf life (they retested it after seven weeks, and it was still fine), and their Coq au Vin did as well with the boxed wine as it did with their $10 Cotes du Rhone standard.
The best general rule is to use whatever you’d like to drink with it. Use what you need, and drink the rest.
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### Author:  [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/14 "2007-09-04T14:36:22Z")
When you cook with wine, you pour it into a hot pan, you dissolve “burnt” bits of meat in it, you cook off most of the the alcohol, you mix it with some combination of sugar, herbs, salt, pepper, tomatoes, whatever, and stock.
I don’t think you NEED a good wine for something like that.
If you’re cooking something like Coq Au Vin, or Braised Short Ribs, you might be using 2+ cups of wine. I’ll be god damned if I’m pouring $15 worth of a $20 bottle of wine into that.
To the OP: box wine has gotten much better over the years, while remaining relatively cheap. Pay the upfront costs of $20 for 4 bottles worth of wine, and it’s a perfect solution for people who don’t cook/drink very often. Most stuff that calls for red (beef, sausage, pork, chicken on the skin & bone) will stand up fine to a cabernet, so you might look into a box of that.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/15 "2007-09-04T14:40:24Z")
[QUOTE=DoctorJ]
My interpretation of the rule has always been to not cook with a wine you _couldn’t_ drink. That is, don’t use “cooking wine”, and don’t use the cheapest plonk you can find, but a respectable sub-$10 bottle is fine.
[/QUOTE]
Herein is the truth.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/16 "2007-09-04T15:24:30Z")
[QUOTE=silenus]
Herein is the truth.
[/QUOTE]
Which is basically what I said in my first post. I didn’t say use bad wine, I just said don’t use expensive wine. I cook with wine in the $5 - $8 range that I wouldn’t normally buy to drink, but that I don’t mind have a glass or two of while I’m cooking. For me, that’s a “cheap” wine-- especially a red.
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### Author:  [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/17 "2007-09-04T17:13:43Z")
I agree with my friend **silenus** here. I would never go out and buy a bottle of cheap wine to use in a recipe, and I would never use a wine that I would not drink in anything I cook.
Life is too short to drink bad wine
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### Author:  [@Thorium\_Indium\_Potassium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thorium_Indium_Potassium)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/18 "2007-09-04T23:47:31Z")
Thanks for all of the replies! I think I’m going to solve the problem with just getting a cheap version of Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet unless the recipe calls otherwise.
Thanks again!
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### Author:  [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/19 "2007-09-05T00:20:16Z")
I use the $5-8 wine for cooking, myself. I use a rose for reds, and a chablis blanc for whites.
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### Author:  [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-wine-do-you-use-for-recipes/417969/20 "2007-09-05T01:17:41Z")
I use Two Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw from Trader Joe’s) for cooking wine, and it’s never done me wrong. I almost always use their Sauvignon Blanc for white and the Cabernet for red.