One of the questions I’m regularly asked is: what’s the best wine to cook with? As it happens, I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit recently, while researching my, ahem, new book Wine Lover’s Kitchen, which, as the title suggests, is all about cooking with wine.
It’s actually rather easier to talk about wines that are not ideal, and which may very well be those you instinctively reach for: the dregs in a bottle that’s been sitting around the kitchen for the last week or so; the wine that was corked; the elderly red you found in the cupboard under the stairs; a bottle of “cooking wine”. Basically, if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it.
That doesn’t mean you should pay a silly amount for a wine you plan to use for cooking, especially if you’re using it in any quantity. The most versatile styles are fresh, crisp, dry whites (inexpensive Italian whites are ideal) and hearty, full-bodied reds. Raid Lidl for the latter, because one of its periodic seasonal releases (all French this time) just came into store. Château Bonhomme Minervois 2016 (£5.99; 13% abv), a gutsy blend of syrah and grenache, would be spot on, as would the vibrant Cars & Marin Fitou (13.5% abv) and Mémoire du Terroir Cairanne (13.5% abv), both from the excellent 2015 vintage and both the same price (though I know six quid tends to take a bottle out of the category of cooking wine). Both are great everyday drinking, too. I also really like Lidl’s white Costières de Nîmes (£4.99; 13% abv), a sturdy blend of grenache blanc, clairette and viognier. That would be ideal in a pork or chicken casserole.
If you’re looking for just a dash of alcohol, fino sherry and madeira also make very good cooks’ ingredients. Fino is considerably cheaper: Waitrose has a perfectly serviceable own-label Fino for just £6.99 (15% abv).
The only time I’d use a better wine is if I was cooking something for a short period and wanted the flavour of the wine to come through. The London wine bar Noble Rot is famous for a dish using Bâtard-Montrachet, but unless you have an extensive cellar, you’re unlikely to have that to hand. But a decent, rich chardonnay such as Aldi’s opulent Astélia Limoux 2016 (£8.99; 13.5% abv) would be fabulous as the base for a creamy sauce. And you can always have the rest of the bottle with dinner.
• Fiona Beckett’s latest book, Wine Lover’s Kitchen: Delicious Recipes For Cooking With Wine, is published on 10 October by Ryland Peters & Small at £16.99. To pre-order a copy for £14.44, go to guardianbookshop.com.
