wine for cooking

What Wines Are Good to Cook With?

by Derek Rogers on May 19, 2009

Wines can add a richness to meats and sauces that can be hard to duplicate any other way. When cooking with wine, the alcohol is essentially evaporated from the wine and what remains is a concentrated base that is full of flavour and enhances any meat or sauce that contains it.

What wines are good to cook with can be initially answered by the response given by many fine Chefs, which say the rule of thumb is "if you wouldn't drink it, then don't cook with it". But certainly, depending on the dish, there are certain wines that would be better than others.

The added flavour of cooking with wine is why you want one that has a good taste, not a bitter, cheap wine. It doesn't mean that it has to be expensive either, but keep in mind that good and bad wines have water and alcohol in common, which cook out of the dish. What you are left with is the flavouring your dish will take on.

Typically, red wines go best with beef, where white wines go better...Read More >>