Re: Cooking with improperly stored wines?

Salut/Hi Sandy,

le/on Thu, 10 Jul 2003 13:57:06 -0400, tu disais/you said:-

I've not had any experience with either of these, but my most basic advice would be only to cook with wines that you would be prepared to drink.

I normally cook with relatively young wines, though I don't think you would have a disaster cooking with one that's a touch past its best. Wine that's been heat damaged, on the other hand, is likely to be another matter. Again, though, if the damage is slight, then your results should be OK. If not, or the wine is well past its best. I can't recommend cooking with it.

If you think about it, almost the only components ALL wines have in common are alcohol and water - with perhaps a bit of tartaric acid, and some other minor components. When cooking with wine remember that this usually involves some fairly vigorous reduction - during which the water and alcohol will be largely evaporated. What's left are just those things that make one wine different from another, a bad wine different from a good one.

If the wine's still drinkable, I see no reason it wouldn't be OK to cook with. If it's really past it, dump it into a vinegar batch and use it on your salad.

Tom S

Hi Ian,

That's good advice, but I'd maybe add one exception. I wonder if anyone else has had similar experience.

It seems to me that TCA contaminated (corky) wines are OK to cook with, as the corky taste quickly disappears. I've only had one case, with a port, where this didn't work, and I suspect the wine was also damaged in other ways.

I've heard that the TCA is highly heat-volatile, and boiling basically eliminates it. (And yes, both Adele and I are highly TCA sensitive, sadly...)

-E

snipped-for-privacy@newstand.syr.edu (Mark J Svereika) asks.....

I really want a better mother than that, but that's an option anyway.

That means that the wine I've been saving is no good, darnit :(

: If the wine's still drinkable, I see no reason it wouldn't be OK to cook : with. If it's really past it, dump it into a vinegar batch and use it on : your salad.

Tom, speaking of vinegar, where does one obtain a "mother"? I'd be interested in turning some wines to vinegar, but know it is no easy task.

Mark S

Unless the TCA steam distills out of the mixture, which is always possible.

Marcel, as you probably know the environmental persistence of organochlorines is legendary. I can think of no reason why TCA should be any more reactive than "dioxin" (TCDD), for instance (with a demonstrated environmental half life of years). True, a cooking pan is different from Hudson River sludge, but the point is that TCA is a

Mark Lipton

Oh, I agree. That paragraph was more a product of my realization that I hadn't thought seriously about organic reactions in a very, very long time, than a real belief that it would react. Since I'm not an expert, I didn't want to say "never," knowing full well that we had a resident organic chemist who could speak more authoritatively on the subject...

Marcel

Thanks Marcel and Mark for the explanation. I'm not sure where I picked the info up, I wonder if I possibly confused units. Or maybe just another urban myth. Still, it's hard to imagine the flavor being simply masked, so perhaps there is some other reaction going on.

Not a timely reply, sorry, I'm just back from vacation this morning and trying to catch up. (In your neck of the woods actually, Marcel. I always forget how soupy Boston is this time of year... )

-E

You're welcome, Emery.

Don't worry, it's not your memory. Yes, Boston is usually pretty soupy, but this is the most humid summer I can remember, made bearable only because it hasn't been particularly warm.

Marcel