Should you really only cook with wine you`d drink?

Why does wine cause us so much anxiety? Whether choosing a bottle from the list at a fancy restaurant, or deciding which one to pour into a braise, we can’t seem to do it without fretting over whether we’ve made a good choice or not. The conventional wisdom these days is to only cook with wine that you’d be willing to drink, though that raises even more questions: How do we define a wine that we’d be willing to drink? Would that include the free wine we’d tolerate for the buzz at a party? Or is the bar higher than that—you know, like a wine we actually enjoy? And if the minimum quality is a wine we’d be willing to drink, is it worth paying even more to get a wine that is special; would the food be that much better?

For the past few weeks, I’ve been cooking nonstop with wine, both red and white, to explore the effects of their flavor on a dish. I’ve compared light reds to big, tannic ones; fruity, tart whites to buttery ones that have spent plenty of time in oak barrels; off-dry (read: slightly sweet) wines to dry ones; cheap wines to expensive ones; and long cooking methods to quick ones.* What I’ve found is that while certain characteristics of a wine will have an impact on the final dish, in most instances those differences are relatively subtle. In many cases, it makes little to no difference at all.

* I did not experiment with fortified and oxidized wines, like port, vermouth, sherry, or Marsala.


more on seriouseats.com