Why wine

Meryl

First, there are several types of cooking with wine. Wine may be used as part of the liquid to cook shellfish for example. Here you would want a high acidity white wine. Strong flavors and sweetness might detract. The wine serves much the same function as adding lemon to the cooking liquid. Then there are dishes that are finished with a splash of wine at the end, perhaps a sherry or other fortified wine. Here one is wanting a moderate taste of the wine in the dish, so the wine is added at the last minute without boiling so that the taste of the wine is not changed. Boiling the dish will cause loss of the desired wine flavors and possibly development of flavors you do not like. Then there are meat dishes cooked in red wine. Here you have to be careful not to choose a red that is too tannic or that has too much acid. If the liquid is greatly reduced for making a sauce at the end, this can become very important, and also a cheap red that has some sweetness can make the sauce too sweet. You just have to experiment with the type of wine used for long cooking. What is best for drinking many not be best for a long-cooked dish.