What do you do with your wine?

Dave,

I'm one of those persons that posted in the other thread, "What's Fermenting?" I do have quite a bit of wine going. One thing that wasn't mentioned here yet was using wine as an ingredient. I don't eat out all that much. I cook at home 4-5 nights per week. I don't like many prepackaged foods, I like making my food myself, as part of my work is in the food industry, and I see just how much fat, preservatives and SODIUM goes into the foods that most people eat. I love to cook with wine. I find that an entire bottle of Sauvignon Blanc makes for a wonderful Piccatta, and as a side note, I don't use veal, I go a little healthier and more PC, I use Tilapia, which is wonderful in this dish. It is a WONDERFUL pairing, and I highly recommend it. Or, if I'm deglazing a pan, I will use a very liberal amount of Merlot. Same with a simple roast in the crock pot, I would dump in a half bottle of Cab, and pour a fresh glass for myself while it cooks. Or if I had a half bottle of red left over, I use it in place of some water in recipes. Or if it calls for stock, I use my own frozen cubed stock reduction and boost the flavor with a little wine for certain dishes. I get good reviews from my guests, and I think that it's less about me and more about the ingredients. And, of course, the WINE.

Ever try cooking this way with a commercial wines? I don't know about you, but I didn't feel like I had the "freedom" (or is it the INCOME?) to use a high quality bottle of wine every time I would want, like a half bottle for the humble pot roast! But now I do whatever I want with it.

Of course, we do the things that others mention here. We have wine with dinner a few nights a week. We have guests over and kill a few bottles. We have a party and a case disappears. I give away loads of wine as gifts to friends and my employees at work. People really seem to love it, and even remember and request it again and again. I think it means something more to them than any $90 bottle of wine could. It is something wrought from our own hands, hearts and minds, and you just can't put a price on that. So for those reasons, the bottles seem to fly off the shelves.

That's why if I ever hope to be able to enjoy any of it myself 5 years down the road, well, then I NEED to make 600 bottles a year! I wish I had a choice in the matter ;>

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Deadend

Sadly I have restricted myself to only one bottle of wine per week for the last year (with very occasional treats of 2 bottles/week!). This is due to diabetes type2 which was diagnosed at my request about 18 months ago. Since then I have lost over 20kg in weight and am in fact feeling much healthier. I am not on diabetic medication but was extremely overweight -- a bottle of wine every day plus maybe two on saturday and Sunday. My doctor suggested I just have a glass or 2 each day but I lack the willpower to not finish off the bottle at one siitting -- hence my weekly treat now!

So I have reduced my winemaking from about 120 gals imp/year down to about

I never thought of cooking with it.... though I had to ask my wife what deglazing was.....

Thanks for all the info everyone!

email: dallyn_spam at yahoo dot com please respond in this NG so others can share your wisdom as well!

I'm in the process of making a pepper & herb wine specifically for cooking with. I'll be bottling it in about a month. Darlene

pepper and herb? what's the recipe on that one? What kind of peppers?

Rick

Leftover frozen green peppers from my garden, and leftover herbs - oregano, parsley, sweet basil. I sort of combined 2 recipes. If you're interested, I'll send it. Darlene

interested,

Sounds interesting. I've infused wine with herbs and spices with good results. Just never thought of making it from them. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

Dave That sounds about right for me. I make around 400 bottles some years and a lot gets given away for events and such. This year I will probably only make 50 gallons, the grapes are looking pretty awful in NY and PA compared to what I have going from California. I really want to make a bit more, but we will see. If I am addicted to anything, it's winemaking.... :o) Regards, Joe

Good Luck with your health Pinky.

I find we drink between 3-5 traditional bottles per week, between my wife and I. We had a neighborhood party(which looks like will happen

I would not have thought thist a couple years ago, but it's like when you put yourself on a budget, if you write down what you spend and when you spend it for a period of time, you get a more accurate reading of yourself...we have done this with wine.

With us, family, friends and special events I think 300 and growing is more the reality then the exception. For all the reasons previously mentioned and my thread here I believe I need to increase my production.

That sounds interesting. I just had grilled chicken tonight that was marinated with my Thai Basil wine. It was terrific.

Darlene, could you post it? It seems that everyone is interested. Thanks.

interested,

Here's the recipe. This is a off-white (tinged yellow) wine which is very fragrant with a 13% alcohol by volume. If I were to make this again I would use more pectic enzyme, maybe up to 1 1/2 tsp, because the wine was cloudy and after I added more pectic enzyme it cleared up.

Pepper & Herb Cooking Wine

(Deadend)

Wow, that sounds wild! I just can't imagine how that would taste. Does it taste of the herbs and pepper, or do the flavors transform, as they do with grape wines? Do you cook with it, drink it or both? I love some of the experimental stuff you guys do, it is very cool. Maybe I am too much of a traditionalist!

I wonder if it would be better or worse with fresh herbs instead of dried? We are blessed with a temperate climate here in the San Francisco Bay Area, so we can grow herbs about 9-10 months out of the year. We still have parsley going absolutely nuts (I was still wearing shorts this weekend, and we're almost in November) and I can get the best Thai basil at the farmer's market; it is always $1.00 for more than you could ever hope to use before it goes bad--but it WOULDN'T go bad if it was in a wine. Hmm...

I prefer red peppers. I wonder if that would produce a "blush" pepper wine?

Regards,

Deadend

I was just planning on cooking with it, but I will see how it tastes. The wine smells very peppery. When I was chatting with this group 8 months or so ago, I found out that peppers (no matter what color, even red) will give you an off-white wine. At the time, most cooked with this wine, but others talked about how nice it was on a cold winter night, and how much it would clear out your sinuses. Darlene

I really found it amazing how many people were surprised at the thought of cooking with wine. Now I might be showing my european roots here but my mother would have killed me if I didn't throw in a bit of red wine into every pasta sauce. Since those days of her teaching me to cook I've been to cooking school and believe me most cooks use wine in EVERY dish. Allow me to give the group a few suggestions:

Jalapeno wine is a great marinade for chicken and fish. It does something to red sauce that you won't believe (pour in 1/2 of a 375ml bottle). Marinate all of your steaks in a cup or 2 or red wine with some garlic. Chicken marinated in tequila and lime juice is great. (ok it isn't wine but since we're on the subject) Saute your mushrooms in butter and white wine with a little salt & pepper. Pork chops either marinated or cooked in Port wine are fantastic (try it you'll NEVER go back I promise). The list goes on and on..........drop me an email if you want the specifics or other dishes I use it in.

Just for fun here is what I have in process: Blackberry Port Cab Pinot Gris Chard Merlot Zin Raspberry Jalapeno Montepulciano

Thanks all for the great discussions in this group. I admit I lay in the background a bit but I really enjoy your posts. I'm quite open to emails if you have a question or comment.

Dave Stacy

I don't know many who use wine in their cooking, but I've watched enough cooking shows to know that it is done a lot. My sister-in-law does use wine in her cooking and she'll get a bottle of my pepper/herb wine. I know my mother never used wine in her cooking, so for me it has been a learning experience. I appreciated the ideas - thank you. Darlene

Hey Dave and Dar,

Yep. I agree wholeheartedly here. I posted in the original thread that's where a fair portion of my wine ends up.

Yep, and you don't have to pay US$25 per plate to taste the wonderful dishes made with wine--you can do it yourself! Hell, if you can MAKE wine you can certainly learn to COOK!

Not only does it taste good, but I remember reading somewhere that the way wine accents the food, it "brightens" the flavors, that you end up using less salt. Also, because it makes a wonderful sauce in its own right, I'd say you can use less fat as well.

You listed great ideas:

Absoulutely; tequila makes a great marinade. I got rave reviews from salmon skewers I made with a marinade very similar to that. Here goes (from memory): Tequila, lime juice, pineapple juice, oyster sauce, a little brown sugar, garlic paste, onion powder, some GOOD hot sauce, and whatever other spices fell into the mix. There are no exact measurements, only proportions, and I needed a marinade with enough liquid that it would cover all the skewers I had premade. This does double duty; not only is your meat or fish ultra tender and flavorful, but the skewers are well soaked and less likely to charcoal when you grill them. This combo makes for great caramelization on the outside of the fish as it cooks. The oyster sauce provides all of the salt, but it also gives that extra flavor boost and the "wow, what's this?" factor for your guests!

Also, note that I said GOOD hot sauce for this recipe, i.e. made from PEPPERS damn it. If the first ingredient in your hot sauce is vinegar, THROW it AWAY!

Never tried that. Sounds good. I love port with duck, though. Fabulous pairing, and good pork has some big flavors to it that would hold up with the port. I wonder how lamb would go?

Sounds wonderful! Wish you could pass me a glass.

Not familiar with that one.

I used to "lurk" alot myself, but now I'm really an active poster all of the sudden. I think I learn more by doing!

Regards,

Deadend

Man that sounds great!

Italian grape from Tuscany a great italian red in the sangiovice (spelling?) family.

Dave

Montepulciano is related, but considerably different from Sangiovese. They both make fine, but distinctly different, wines.