It's a common misconception that it's OK to cook using inferior wine. If you do, your dinner will become inferior to what it would have been if you had used good wine.
That said, you don't need to use Château Lafite for marinading a roast. Any good red wine will do - but it should be something that you'd enjoy drinking.
FWIW, the best gravy I ever made started with a bottle of 1975 Carneros Creek Pebreaste Syrah. That wine was a huge, dark, tannic, high alcohol monster - and wasn't particularly cheap.
As for the TCA issue, you might try pouring the wine into a wide mouth decanter and dunking a wadded up sheet of Saran Wrap* into it for several hours (or more). Supposedly, the plastic has a greater affinity for the TCA than does the wine, and the TCA will "dissolve" into the plastic. Depending on the degree of taint, this may or may not be effective - that is if it actually is TCA. *Be sure that the plastic wrap is polyethylene - not PVC - or you may render the wine even less drinkable.
If this doesn't work I'd probably dump the bad bottles and chalk it up to experience. But hey, it's your wine.
Tom S www.chateauburbank.com
