Uses for Cheap Wine #3 - Cooking

I must preface this by clarifying that cheap wine doesn’t necessarily mean bad wine, and it is my firm belief that one should never put any wine in their food that they would not drink. To quote the comedian WC Fields “I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food!”

Here are some tips on cooking with wine at a discount:
When you want to create a perfect pairing of wine with a dish that you are cooking that has wine in the recipe, use the same wine you are drinking in the dish. Now, I’m not saying that you should deglaze* your pan with your Kistler Chardonnay! At $100.00+ per bottle, that would make for one expensive pan jus! Instead, get a Chardonnay that is $8-10 a bottle, something that is similarly oaky, but make sure that it is something you would happily drink on a more casual evening.
To make a fabulous herb butter, add white wine to your recipe for herb butter. The wine will provide balancing acidity - use a $6-8 crisp white such as torrontes, or sauvignon blanc.
Use an $8-12 shiraz or cabernet to marinate tougher meats such as beef cheeks, ox tails, veal shanks or brisket. The acid helps to break down the meat and add wonderful flavor. As always, the wine should at least be drinkable.

This should get you off to a good start cooking with wine! Bon appetit!

*Deglaze - after cooking a meat, poultry or fish on a frying pan, add wine to the hot pan. The wine will collect all the pan residue. Reduce this over a low flame, then add cream or butter to make a great sauce!

The New Wine Connoisseur

The term “emerging markets” has a specifically nouveau riche intonation when people are talking about wine consumption in China and India. The story of the Beijing business man who opens up a first growth Bordeaux worth upwards of US$700.00 and adds coke to it before drinking has become a new urban legend in the wine world. At a panel discussion last night at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, Charles Curtis MW, wine consultant Judy Beardsall and Bloomberg News’ Wine and Spirits Columnist Elin McCoy could not help but bring this topic up when discussing Fine & Rare Wines in a Changing Market.

Charles, who is Vice President and Head of North American Wine Sales for Christie’s, referred to an auction in Hong Kong earlier this year where top wines were selling for well above their high estimates, in some cases 3 or 4 times as much at gavel - especially those of Chateau Lafite, one of the five first growth Bordeaux wines (newly released bottles of this wine fetch upwards of $800.00 a pop, even more in fantastic vintage years). Indeed, as consumers in Asia are finding that they now have more disposable income than ever before, they are exploring these luxury goods, and wine is finally finding new fans where it never did before.

There is even wine production taking place - in India, Sula leads the charge, with a decent, value-priced Syrah and a few other wines. When you think India, don’t make the mistake of thinking hot. Such a large country has parts that do indeed experience winter, and cooler mountain areas where vitis vinifera grape vines can flourish. The same is happening in China.

Also in China, sadly typically, is counterfeiting of higher end wines. Elin repeated a statement she said she’d heard a Canadian Liquor Control Board official make - “50% of the Canadian ice wine in China is not ice wine, and its not Canadian”. So it’s not just dvd’s and Louis Vuiton handbags in the fake market anymore! Caveat emptor! Verify the authenticity of a coveted wine you are thinking of buying and purchase from reputable sources - these are key elements of what we call provenance.

On the bright side, these new wine buyers seem to be ignoring the Wine Spectator and Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate scores that have long been polarizing driving forces behind the perception of quality in individual wines, and therefore, there pricing and their sale-ability. Instead, they are listening to what their friends and colleagues are saying, in what Charles referred to as the “rise of the consumer review”. I would be interested to follow that supply chain and see where the friends and colleagues are getting their information from - I sincerely hope it is from drinking the wines themselves, and not from one of the aforementioned magazines.

That’s the thing about wine, though. The fun is in discovering. It makes me very happy to know that there is a whole new, very large group of consumers who are discovering and developing a palate for wine. Its a wine world after all!!

Photo Credit: Jupiter Images www.jupiterimages.com

What Makes a Wine?

My chapter of Women for WineSense had a great tasting with David Moore at Moore Brothers Wine Company last week in Gramercy.  One of the things that makes this shop so unique is that they specialize in wines from France, Italy and Germany, and as well, they have a wonderful event space that has a kitchen stocked with sleek stainless steel appliances - Chef Shehu, who came to pick me up, was drooling!  

Listening to David Moore speak that night brought to light another unique feature of this shop.  A main vein wine philosophy that likely directs all the wine selections in the store.  He talked at length about the places the wines came from - it seems he had not only visited them all, but was surprisingly familiar with minute details like soil and climate differences between this vineyard and the next vineyard over - and it soon came to light that he places a high level of importance on the origin of a particular wine.  

Although the reasons for this fact are arguable, it is undeniable that wine is a product of its place.  Nonetheless, I had to disagree in my own mind with the way he diminished the importance of the grape variety as a contributor to the character of the wine it becomes.  "Calling Chinon Cabernet Franc is like calling bread flour," he opined, referring to one of my favorite red wines from France's meandering Loire Valley.  

To be clear, Chinon is the name of a place in the valley, also referred to as an appellation.  The wines of Chinon are red wines made from the Cabernet Franc grape.  I agree that Cabernet Franc wines made in Chinon must taste different than Cabernet Franc made on the North Fork of Long Island, as a function of the phenomenon we call terroir.  Nonetheless, I maintain that Cabernet Franc as a grape has a distinct character and therefore is a major contributor to what makes Chinon Chinon.  If Pinot Noir were also grown and produced in Chinon, it would be an inherently distinct glass of wine.  

As well, to say that calling a wine of place by the name of the grape it is made from is akin to calling bread flour is a bit simplistic.  One of the magical things about wine is that it is the least processed of the agricultural products that undergo processing to reach a final result.  Water, sometimes sugar, eggs, seeds, grains, flavorings of various types and heat must be added to flour to create bread.  Wine, in its most essential form, is never embellished to this point.  It may be aged in oak or fermented with selected yeast strains, but it remains what it is from day: 100% grape juice.  And the juices of Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling grapes all taste distinct.  Even the addition of water can change the flavor of flour, depending on where that water comes from.  

In my crusade to help the wine consumer confidently buy and enjoy wine, I have found that grape varieties are a much more simple thing to latch on to and make sense of.  A grape can have a character like an person, and it can travel and live and grow in various places, take on new characteristics, even reinvent itself, but still be what it is.  To understand a particular location as the identity of a wine can be a bit confusing, because while all wine is a product of grapes, not all wine is an inextricable product of the place it was made.  

I love a good Chinon.  We tasted one on the night of our event in our cute shoes side by side with a Bourgeil.  They tasted different to me, one a bit more tannic and earthy than the other, but none the less I loved them both.  Two wines made from my favorite grape variety: Cabernet Franc.