How to Cook With Wine

How many times have you picked up a cheap bottle of wine, planned to cook with it, and it's still sitting in your pantry a year later? There are many great ways you can use an inexpensive bottle of wine to spice up your cooking.

The Origins Of Wine And Winemaking

Wine has a long and venerable history, with references to its use cropping up in ancient texts from thousands of years ago - not least, of course, in the Bible. We know for a fact that it was firmly established in the Middle Eastern culture of around two thousand years ago, and for it to be so commonplace at that time it must have been around for quite some time before that.

Sangria Recipe

This sangria recipe takes 5 to 10 minutes to make. Make sure you have a pitcher large enough to hold one bottle of wine plus all of the fruit you add. Usually a one liter pitcher is large enough. You can also serve this sangria recipe in a punch bowl (with a wooden serving spoon).

Prepare this sangria recipe in the morning if possible so the sangria has several hours to absorb the the fruit juices into the wine. Allow the pitcher to cool in the fridge for several hours before serving.

Tips for Serving Chocolate and Wine

Adding chocolate to the traditional post dinner cheese plate is the perfect way to give the 'sweet tooths' out there something to enjoy alongside the savoury goodies you've prepared. While this may go against the traditional idea of what you should include, there is no reason that this can't make a great compromise between sweet and savoury if you plan it well. Using a dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa is often the best way to serve up chocolate and wine when putting together a cheese plate. Other options include using fruit cheeses and dried fruit and nuts or selecting a sweet desert wine to compliment the sweet taste of regular chocolate.

Wine and Cheese Pairings

Pairing wine with gourmet cheese is more an art than a science. The great part about that is the trial and error process can be rather delicious. Here are a few guidelines to get you going in the right direction.

Play the match game. Match the boldness of your cheese with the boldness of a wine. If you have a slightly more subtle cheese like Brie, you need an equally medium intensity wine, otherwise one will overpower the other. Try to match the subtleties in a wine with the subtleties in a cheese. The nuttiness of a cheese like an aged Gouda works well with a slight nuttiness of a wine. The bright, tanginess of a fresh chevre (goat cheese) goes well with the bright, acidity of a Sauvignon Blanc.

Try sweet with salty for a classic combination. Off-dry and dessert wines like a Late Harvest Riesling balance the saltiness of cheeses like the Stilton or Gorgonzola.

Give Equal Opportunity. Just as with your cheese plate, you want a variety of grape varietals and regions represented. If you’re serving three cheeses, try to pair them with one sparkling, one white and one red wine from different regions.

Go Regional. As with food, cheese and wine from the same region have a natural inclination to pair well together. For hundreds and thousands of years, farmers and vintners have been creating their goods to work well with the local palate. So try Drunken Goat with a spicy Spanish wine from Rioja for a near foolproof pairing.

Serving Order. Keep your heaviest cheese and wine pairing until the end otherwise you’re apt to have your mouth coated in blue cheese early on making you unable to taste the nuances of delicate cheese and wine pairings.

Source: The Cheese Ambassador