The cooking wine rule: if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it

Years ago, when working in the UK, I was asked to submit samples for a cooking wine tasting. The sommelier at The Roux Waterside Inn in Berkshire told me they tasted each wine in the line-up, then boiled it down and tasted again, and lastly included each in a red-wine sauce before deciding on the winner. Obviously they thought it made a difference, but then their job, as a three star-Michelin restaurant, was to make sure that every last detail was perfect.
The winning wine was a well-known and not inexpensive Côtes du Rhône. The restaurant went through about 10 cases of wine (120 bottles) a week of their cooking wine. Sadly, they didn’t choose my wine.
But, Michelin-starred restaurants aside, does the quality and kind of wine you use in cooking really matter? Older recipes for beef Bourguignon or coq au vin, two Burgundian classics, call for a whole bottle of “decent red Burgundy”. These days that would set you back €20 or more, which seems very extravagant.
I love a drop of fino sherry in clear soups and darker sauces or a very decent glass of amontillado sherry in a trifle. I think it is essential to use a glass of white wine in a risotto, and a beef stew is improved greatly by a decent glass of red wine. I believe that the style of wine matters as much as the quality, although I wouldn’t use the cheapest bottle of plonk for cooking.
If the wine you add is sweet (and a lot of red wines are these days), that sugar will remain in the sauce. The same goes for acidity; a glass of dry white will add a decent amount of acidity, so taste as you go, and don’t use it in red meat dishes. In general light unoaked white wines seem to work best with fish and chicken, as the oak flavours can sometimes linger and the acidity is welcome. Pinot Grigio, sauvignon blanc, albariño, Soave or dry Riesling are all good. For red wines, I prefer medium-bodied lightly oaked or unoaked wines with no tannins which can make your sauce dry. Pinot Noir, Beaujolais, merlot, Grenache (including most southern Rhône reds) are best. Fortified wines such as sherry, Madeira, good marsala and port are great for all kinds of cooking. They add a richness and depth of flavour.
A word of warning. According to Thealcoholprofessor.com, it takes a while for the alcohol to evaporate in a boiling sauce – a matter of hours, and it never totally disappears. In tests conducted by the USDA, baked or simmered dishes that contained alcohol still had 40 per cent of the original amount after 15 minutes of cooking, 35 per cent after 30 minutes and 25 per cent after an hour. If you want to lessen the alcohol quickly, boil the wine by itself in a saucepan at high heat for five to 10 minutes before adding it to your dish. My sister (a chef) tells me that it will taste far better in the sauce too. If you are super-organised, boil down any leftover wine you have and freeze it in the ice cube tray. Then you can add a drop of concentrated wine any time you need it.
This all sounds a little nerdy. In truth, I usually add a glass of whatever I happen to be drinking into the dish I am cooking. My rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it. I find the most important culinary decision to make is which glass of wine you drink while cooking, essential for creativity and inspiration.